


Freeze Frame

by tastewithouttalent



Series: A Thousand Words [1]
Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blood, Cell Phones, Dom/sub Undertones, Epiphanies, First Aid, Groping, Hand Jobs, Love Confessions, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multiple Orgasms, Needles, Photographs, Rough Kissing, Secret Crush, Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-19
Packaged: 2019-04-23 17:44:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14337738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "There are a handful of faces in close-up in the thumbnails, a boy in a high school jacket who looks vaguely familiar, a woman Shizuo’s never seen before, one of Kasuka, of all people; and himself, unmistakably, over and over again in row after row, filling up all the gaps between those other one-off photos." Shizuo stumbles onto more than he expected when he picks up Izaya's misplaced phone, and Izaya yields to the repercussions.





	1. Stereoscopy

Shizuo’s in a bad mood.

It’s not just the cut dripping a sluggish trail across the outside of his arm to stain the torn white of his shirt to a vivid, eye-catching crimson. He’s had worse before, after all; by the time he’s made it across town to Shinra and Celty’s apartment, the wound has clotted almost closed all on its own. It’s shallow enough that it probably won’t even leave a scar, if he wraps it up in a bandage tonight; or he could always hold it shut with some stitches of his own, or even the super glue he’s made use of on previous occasions. He doesn’t really need to see Shinra at all, for something so minor; but he’s been irritable all day, ever since he woke up this morning to a tang in the air like raw electricity, like the haze of heat lightning that hasn’t yet found its way to the ground, and it’s hopes of grounding that out as much as anything else that steers his steps towards his friends’ apartment.

He doesn’t _want_ to see Izaya. Shizuo’s never in the mood for the other’s company, regardless of how cheerful he’s feeling; with the weight of his own unformed expectation hanging over him now, actually setting his eyes on the other sounds like far from a pleasant experience. But he’s been carrying that suspicion with him all day, like an itch just between his shoulderblades where he can’t reach, and by this point the frustration of it is so keen he thinks he’d be likely to walk straight through a brick wall if he even suspected Izaya was on the other side. He wants to _know_ , wants to see Izaya before him and have confirmation that the other is meddling, _again_ , some proof of the certainty he’s been carrying around on his shoulders since he left his apartment this morning. So he finds himself taking longer and longer strides as he approaches the apartment, moving to cover the distance the more rapidly as possibility draws into something like expectation; until by the time he’s knocking roughly against the heavy-bolted door it’s with strain clenching in both his hands, not just the one rattling the support of the door in its frame.

“ _Coming!_ ” It’s a distant voice, muffled by the length of a hallway and the weight of the door between the speaker and Shizuo himself, but it’s still clearly Shinra’s ever-cheerful lilt. Shizuo grimaces with the need to wait, and lowers his fist unwillingly to his side; a moment later there’s a rattle of the door, the sound of the lock mechanism turning over, and then the door is coming open to reveal Shinra smiling up at Shizuo before him.

“Shizuo!” he chirps, sounding as delighted as if Shizuo is a long-awaited guest instead of the unannounced intruder he is by any reasonable standards. “Good to see you! I thought you might be coming by.” He steps to the side of the door and sweeps an arm wide to gesture Shizuo in. “Come in! Ooh, are you bleeding?” He takes a half-step closer, bracing the door open with his foot so he can reach out and touch against the bloodstained edge of Shizuo’s sleeve. “Did someone new to town actually try to pick a fight with you?”

Shizuo sighs. “No,” he says. “It was at work, I was--” and then he catches that biting electricity that’s been winding through the city streets like a fog in the air all day, and his head jerks up at the same time he hisses fury past his teeth. “ _Izaya_.”

“Ah,” Shinra says, the sound pulling free from him as easily as Shizuo wrenches his sleeve loose of the other’s hold to push forward and into the apartment. “Wait, Shizuo, he--” but Shizuo is moving without waiting to hear whatever it is Shinra is trying to say, stepping into the apartment as quickly as his jaw tenses on anger. He kicks his shoes off at the edge of the entryway almost without slowing; his hands are curling to fists, his shoulders are tensing towards his ears. He can taste that burn of the other’s presence in the air, can almost see the weight of Izaya’s existence forming itself to clarity before his eyes; he’s already taking a breath to growl a wordless threat as he turns the corner to the living room, already glaring in anticipation of a dark head turning up to flash a blinding smile in his direction. But Izaya’s not there -- there’s no one in the living room at all -- and Shizuo is left stuttering to a halt at the edge of the space, his glare giving way to a frown of confusion instead of the anticipated anger he was tasting so clearly.

“He’s not here.” That’s Shinra again, from over Shizuo’s shoulder; when Shizuo turns to look back the other is standing just past the edge of the entryway, beaming with as much cheer as if Shizuo were looking to wish Izaya a good afternoon rather than with every intention of beating him senseless the moment he’s within reach. “He came by to drop off a request for Celty but left in a rush just a few minutes ago.” Shinra’s shoulders lift into a shrug as careless as the bright of the smile that spreads over his face. “He must have heard you coming. I swear, you two really do have a sixth sense when it comes to each other!”

“We do not,” Shizuo growls, more to reject the possibility of sharing anything at all with Orihara Izaya than because he’s really listening to the form or meaning of Shinra’s words. “I just want to _kill_ him and he won’t stop running away.”

Shinra’s laugh is just as unconcerned as his expression. “Maybe he doesn’t want you to kill him,” he says, making the idea sound very nearly like an actual question instead of the sarcasm it would be if it were anyone else saying it. “If you’re planning to stick around for a little while I could put some stitches in that cut you’ve got. Not that you won’t heal up just fine without them, but it’ll hurt a little less with a bandage over it.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Shizuo says, grumbling over the words as his only means of giving voice to his frustration; but Shinra is already turning to head down the hallway towards his store of medical supplies, and Shizuo doesn’t bother shouting to make himself heard. The raw edge of his frustration is giving way in any case, bleeding out of him with far greater speed than the liquid clotting sticky against his skin; it’s leaving him with just the dregs of unhappiness bitter as saltwater at the back of his tongue. Shizuo scowls out at Shinra’s living room, feeling Izaya’s presence so keenly he almost thinks he might summon him into existence; and then he heaves a sigh, and steps forward to at least sit down at the edge of the couch while he waits for Shinra to return.

There’s nothing to look at. Shinra’s taste in home decor runs strongly towards the clinically austere, and while Shizuo admires Celty’s restrained sense of style it doesn’t do much to lighten the nearly painful tidiness of the space. There’s a shut laptop in one corner, a cluster of chairs arrayed in a loose semicircle before the couch Shizuo has claimed for himself; out the window there’s a balcony with a view of the city, with the bustle of the street level softened to all the hazy unfocus of an image seen on a movie screen. Shizuo stares out the window for a moment, feeling a little of his tension easing just for the relief of having a moment to himself; and then there’s a hum of sound from just alongside his elbow, and he jumps and startles to frown at the dark phone buzzing on the nearly-black coffee table before him. There’s no name associated to the caller -- it’s just the plain lines of a phone number displayed on the screen -- but the phone keeps ringing, humming with the evidence of the incoming call rather than hanging up as a misdialed call might. Shizuo stares at it for a moment, caught in uncertainty about what to do before he tips his head to look over the back of the couch and towards the hallway where Shinra has vanished.

“Shinra!” he calls. “Your phone’s ringing!” There’s no reply, either by a shout or the noise of movement; Shizuo looks back to the phone, feeling his pulse pick up with the unwarranted adrenaline that comes with a call left ringing for too long. Shinra won’t make it back in time to answer, even if he heard Shizuo’s shout; Shizuo reaches out to pick up the phone, leaning forward with some vague thought of taking it down the hallway for Shinra to answer himself. His fingers touch the sides of the phone, he lifts it from the table; and the vibration dies to silence as immediately as if Shizuo’s touch stifled it. The screen flickers alive, announcing the missed call in clear illumination; Shizuo rolls his eyes and reaches to set the phone back down on the table. He’ll just tell Shinra someone called, they can always call back if it was important; and then the notification closes itself, the screen shifts back to what it was displaying before, and Shizuo’s attention veers back to the phone with as much startled speed as if someone had shouted his name.

They did, in a way; or as much as the still silence of an image can, at any rate. Shizuo’s gaze catches at pale hair, a white shirt, dark lines; and he’s bringing the phone back towards himself, the immediate pull of curiosity enough to wholly override any more thoughtful concerns about invading someone else’s privacy. Because it’s a photograph of him on the screen, the familiar hunch of his shoulders and the tangle of his hair too immediately recognizable for Shizuo to mistake; and Shizuo is drawing the phone closer to frown sudden, fixed attention at the image before him. It’s half in profile, as if a capture of him in motion or just turning away; most of his expression is hidden by the angle of his shoulder and the fall of his hair in front of his face, looking windswept and disheveled as if by fretful hands, but it’s still unmistakably him, even disregarding the giveaway of his usual uniform. There’s nothing remarkable about the image, nothing particularly interesting in the photograph; except that Shizuo doesn’t remember this picture being taken, by Shinra or by anyone else. He frowns at it, wondering if it’s some kind of composite job, wondering why anyone would bother; and then his thumb slips against the bottom of the screen, and the phone retreats from the single photo to offer up an album of them instead. There’s a whole row of thumbnails, shadowy pictures and clear portrait shots and blurry mis-prints; and Shizuo finds himself staring, all thought of privacy entirely forgotten. There are a handful of faces in close-up in the thumbnails, a boy in a high school jacket who looks vaguely familiar, a woman he’s never seen before, one of Kasuka, of all people; and himself, unmistakably, over and over again in row after row, filling up all the gaps between those other one-off photos. There’s the first one that was open when he picked up the phone, that over-the-shoulder profile of Shizuo starting to move away; but there are others, two, three, a half dozen just on the page Shizuo is on, just that he can recognize at first glance.

He taps another, his motion made nearly reflexive by the force of curiosity in him, and it expands to fill the whole of the screen in his hand. This one shows more of his face, as he’s turning in the direction of the camera; his photograph’s gaze meets his own, the scowl clinging to his image’s lips a perfect match for the uncomfortable frown Shizuo can feel tugging at his mouth even as he stares at himself. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about the image, other than that it’s of him; he can’t think of any reason anyone would want this in their phone, even as a caller ID to associate with an incoming notification. He doesn’t even know whose phone this is; his initial assumption of it belonging to Shinra has evaporated along with that glimpsed camera roll absent even a single shot of Shinra’s favorite subject, but Shizuo has no other guesses. Surely he would have noticed Celty taking his picture, surely Celty would be able to just ask him to pose for anything she needed; these are all stolen pictures, candids while his back is turned or his head is ducked or as his attention is just coming around to land on the photographer. There’s even a few blurry shots of scenery, as if the camera jerked off-center as it was going off, or like the lens focused on something other than what the owner intended it to capture; as if the photographer was forced to pull away at the last minute, or was startled into sudden, rapid motion. Shizuo thumbs through another photograph, his scowl deepening as a hazy idea surfaces in his mind, presenting itself towards clarity while he struggles to lay hands to it; and then he swipes one of those dark-lit images of his face aside, and is confronted with a brilliant smile so nearly familiar the suspicion cements itself to certainty in the space between one breath and the next.

“ _Izaya_ ,” Shizuo growls, clarity hitting too suddenly for him to modulate himself to silence. It’s not a picture of Izaya, of course -- it’s of one of his sisters, the chatty one with the glasses and the braids and the smile so eerily close to her brother’s, albeit without the taunting edge that always washes Shizuo’s vision to red. But the resemblance is enough to focus Shizuo’s thoughts in the moment, to provide him with the name he was reaching for; and of course, of _course_ , the answer is perfectly obvious as soon as he considers it. Who else would bother to capture so much evidence of Shizuo himself, who else would care so much about Shizuo’s presence to save so many blurry and ill-lit and poorly-framed photographs of the back of his head, or the line of his shoulders, or even just proof of the destruction he leaves in his wake? Shizuo tabs through the photos again, at speed this time, feeling his shoulders tense on anger as certainty settles into him. There are a few reference pictures, the high schoolers Shizuo has seen once or twice, the woman probably some part of one of Izaya’s convoluted plots herself, the sisters captured as carefully distinct images instead of a single shared photograph; and Shizuo, over and over again, angry and distracted and at a distance and dangerously close, every shot all but dripping with that dug-in obsession that Shizuo knows so well. Even the image of Kasuka makes sense, in that light; it’s another point of interest for Shizuo, as much a part of the collection of the world centered on him as those blurry still frames or the destroyed street signs that Shizuo can recognize at a glance as his own work. Izaya was even here, Shinra said so himself; he must have left in a rush with Shizuo’s arrival, perhaps too quickly to remember to take his phone with him. It must be him, it _is_ him, there’s no doubt in Shizuo’s mind; he can feel his jaw set on anger, on the force of temper rising in him with just the thought of Izaya as it would with the other’s actual presence. He’s been sneaking photographs all this time, capturing Shizuo in the lens of his camera for--for...and Shizuo’s temper flickers, sputtering itself out with the same speed it always rises in him as he runs up against a question he lacks an answer for.

He flicks back through the photos, going all the way back to the beginning of the camera roll, to that first shot of his back and the tangle of his hair so he can frown attention at it. It’s clearly of him, anyone in the city would recognize his uniform and his hair and the smoke rising from the cigarette braced in his fingers; but there’s nothing else in it, no sign of wrongdoing, no indication of misbehavior to be used as any kind of blackmail or otherwise. Shizuo frowns at it for a long moment, his forehead creasing as he searches for some sign of purpose to the photograph, some reason to keep it at all; but there’s no use he can see, try as he might. To be sure, Izaya always has some plot in the works, generally so twisted in on itself Shizuo can barely guess at its outline; but even the shadows are providing him nothing now, no matter how he reaches for paranoid assumptions. It’s just a photograph, clearly of him, even if he’s not looking at the camera; and so is the next, and the next, each one he looks at is the same. There’s no dark secret caught by the still frames, no logic Shizuo can see in them; they’re just pictures, as simple and meaningless as those captured by a group of friends or by a pair of lovers out on their first date. They’re no more than moments in time, nothing but touchpoints in Shizuo’s life as if to prove the truth of his existence.

“Damnit,” Shizuo growls, confusion turning itself to frustration as he tabs through the pictures with greater speed, cycling from one shot to the next with increasing impatience. “What is he even _doing_ with these?” There’s no pattern to the pictures, no logic to their sequence; there’s just the quantity, and the consistency, shot after shot of the boredom of Shizuo’s daily life filling all the space of Izaya’s phone. They can serve no purpose, can be of no interest to anyone; the only effect they are creating is that of a record of Shizuo’s ordinary day, as if the camera is trailing him with all the doting intent of a dear friend. Shizuo can’t make so much as a guess as to why Izaya would have these photos of him, why Izaya would bother with following him around to sneak pictures as if Shizuo is something valuable in himself, as if he needs to collect a record of the other’s existence the way a lovestruck teenager--

Shizuo’s thumb goes still against the screen of the phone. It takes a moment for the sensors to react -- for a heartbeat the pictures go on scrolling through a handful more images -- but Shizuo doesn’t see them, doesn’t in fact see anything at all for how entirely his attention has centered in on that trailing thought. It was an idle phrasing, he wasn’t even thinking of the words for how intently he was frowning at the screen of the phone in his hand; but the thought echoes against the space of his head, resonating with the weight of something if not sincerity than alarmingly close to it. Shizuo stares at the photograph the phone has stopped on: a distant one, this, from high and over his shoulder at an angle where the photographer is clearly trying to not be seen. There’s nothing worth seeing in the picture itself -- just Shizuo, his crisp uniform and bleached hair and the indistinct dark of the alley around him -- but the angle, the framing, even the subject of the photograph, all are coming together to speak not to Shizuo’s intent, but to that of the person with the phone braced in his hand, to the dedication that would keep such an awkward picture as something worth saving, something worth revisiting. There’s an intention there, an interest above and beyond the idle desire to tease and taunt that Shizuo has always attributed to Izaya; and Shizuo can feel a suspicion forming in his mind, can feel the weight of it expanding to push aside his anger and his confusion and his embarrassment alike, as if the walls of his mind itself are giving way to the shock of this possibility. He can’t possibly be right in this, he must be mistaken on some fundamental level; but Shizuo’s pressing his thumb to the phone, and sweeping back through the photographs in spite of himself. He sees his face in a myriad of positions, distracted and angry and calm and curious; some shots from a distance, some from uncannily close, some blurred out of focus by the proof of him noticing the bearer of the phone he’s going through. They are useless images, unnecessary as a way to recognize him and ineffective as any kind of blackmail; and yet they linger, the sheer quantity of them alone enough to give voice to something Shizuo has never noticed before, has never thought could possibly exist. After all this time and all these years of wondering why Izaya does what he does, why everywhere Shizuo goes Izaya is there too, why Izaya won’t let him be, this is the first time Shizuo has ever thought of this possibility, the first time he has tried to put the word _lov_ \--

The phone in his hand buzzes again. Shizuo jumps, startled so badly he nearly drops the thing right back onto the table where he found it; it’s the same number again, the unidentified one with no picture or name attached to it. Shizuo’s heart is racing, his thoughts are spinning with frantic speed; it takes him longer than it should to locate the button on the side of the phone just to silence the hum of the vibration to quiet. The screen continues to glow at him, the number blinking as if to taunt him with his own suspicion; Shizuo stares at it as if at a snake in his hand. He knows who must be calling, knows whose voice he’ll hear if he answers; he wonders what Izaya might say, to hear Shizuo’s words against the microphone of a phone so heavy with incriminating evidence of his own feelings. For a moment Shizuo’s thumb hovers over the screen, trembling with the same weight of possibility stirring so dizzy through his thoughts; and then:

“You can take that if you want!” Shinra calls from the hallway, and Shizuo jerks as if he’s taken a jolt of electricity directly to the spine. He shoves the phone out of sight, pushing it into his pocket before he’s thought through the possessiveness of the action; he’s moving too quickly for conscious decision, too carried forward on the surge of panic that hit his confused thoughts with Shinra’s bright tone. The phone slides out of view, the call and the photos both disappearing from Shinra’s sight, and then Shizuo is looking up and Shinra is stepping forward into the room with a tray in his hands burdened with needles and scalpels and a full roll of gauze. He doesn’t look at all suspicious -- he doesn’t look like anything other than totally focused on what he’s holding -- but Shizuo’s heart is still racing with self-consciousness, he can feel his cheeks glowing with heat as if he’s been caught in some embarrassing indulgence.

“Not important?” Shinra asks without really sounding very interested in the answer. He steps forward to clatter the tray down on the coffee table; Shizuo has a brief moment of panic that he’ll notice the absence of the phone that was there, but Shinra doesn’t so much as blink before he straightens to step past the table and around to the other side of the couch. “You really don’t need stitches at all if you have to go somewhere, I could just give you a bandage and we could call it good.”

“No.” Shizuo shakes his head and clears his throat with somewhat more force than the action requires. “It’s not important.”

Shinra shrugs. “If you say so,” he says. The couch shifts as he drops to sit alongside Shizuo and reaches for the bottle of antiseptic on the tray; for a minute there’s just the sound of the liquid sloshing as Shinra upends it over a cotton ball and the click of the plastic lid shutting before he sets it back down. It’s all comfortingly familiar from Shizuo’s perspective; this, at least, is well within the bounds of his usual experience, with none of the alarming suspicion settling itself into his thoughts. He can just take a deep breath and settle himself into the simple process of cleaning up an injury and getting a few stitches put in; the pain of the antiseptic is more warmth than it is anything else, and the needle is hardly worth noting at all. Shizuo can relax into the couch, and fix his gaze out the clear of the window, and let his attention drift as Shinra hums with soft attention to his work as he sets a careful row of stitches into the freshly cleaned cut across Shizuo’s arm. The sunlight outside is brilliant, it catches the metal of the railing to flash back into Shizuo’s eyes; and Shizuo’s memory calls up the glint of an open blade, the razor edge of it a perfect match for the grin of the man wielding it. Izaya’s eyes are always brilliant, when Shizuo sees him, sparkling with color and light as if he’s anticipating the thrill of a fight; but maybe it’s not the fight he’s so excited by, maybe it’s not sadism like Shizuo always assumed was casting his smile to such a shine. There’s something almost desperate in his motions, now that Shizuo thinks of them again; some darkness in his eyes that goes untouched by his smile, however sharp-edged it may be. And there’s the teasing, the mockery that Shizuo has always taken as a taunt, the laughter and winking and drawled words that start to look uncomfortably like flirting, now, when he thinks over them with the greater calm granted by distance and his own uncertainty. No matter what Shizuo reaches for, the fights and the teasing and the danger; everything that has always seemed like hatred before gives way as soon as he reaches for it, like that one brief thought was enough to split everything open down the seams and strip Izaya of his facade of dislike. Izaya must hate him, must loathe everything Shizuo stands for, that’s the one certainty Shizuo has always been able to hold to in his life; but he can’t explain the array of photographs in his pocket with hatred, and the more he thinks on it the more all his other memories take on the tenor of want, of thinly-veiled desire so keen it has taken on a broken-glass edge all its own to draw blood in the name of love. It seems impossible to believe; it seems impossible that Shizuo never saw it before this moment. Could it really be that all this time, for all these years, Izaya has been…

“Done!” Shinra’s voice seems louder than it should be; Shizuo jerks with the shock of the sound. It would be enough to do himself some damage if Shinra were still holding the needle, but he’s finished with the stitches, has in fact finished with the whole process of wrapping Shizuo’s arm in a bandage while Shizuo was lost in his own thoughts. Shizuo looks down, feeling as disoriented as if he’s lost some span of time in his return to his past memories; it’s almost strange to see his bartender uniform, he feels vaguely as if he ought to be back in the blue coat he wore that first day of high school, that first day he looked up to meet a pair of crimson eyes and a smile that seems almost inviting, now, rather than the mockery he has always remembered it as.

“You were a lot calmer than usual,” Shinra tells him, as Shizuo flexes his arm and tries to fit himself back into the space of his present body. “That’ll heal up a lot better since you gave me the time to actually stitch it up. Are you entering a new phase of maturity, Shizuo?” Shizuo looks up from his bandaged arm to scowl at Shinra and Shinra rocks back onto the couch, holding his hands up as he breaks into a laugh. “Just kidding. You _do_ seem quieter than usual, though.” Shinra’s head tips to the side, his forehead creases on consideration. “And you’re really flushed. Are you sick?” His eyes light up and he brings his hands together to clap against each other. “Maybe there was poison on the weapon! What is it you were cut with?”

“No,” Shizuo says as the most efficient answer he can give to the onslaught of Shinra’s questions. He braces his hands at the couch and pushes himself to his feet in a rush. “I’m going home.”

“You could stay here for the evening!” Shinra offers as Shizuo turns to make for the entryway and slide his shoes back on. “If there’s something bad enough to bring you down it could kill someone else, it would be worth studying the effect on a body like yours!”

Shizuo pulls the door open without turning around. “Bye, Shinra.” He takes a step out into the hallway and pauses for a moment, considering; then he turns back around to glance over his shoulder. “Thanks for patching me up.”

Shinra beams at him from the edge of the living room. “Sure thing. Tell Izaya I said hi if you see him, will you?”

Shizuo feels his face heat; he turns his head to look out into the hallway. “Yeah,” he says. “Sure.”

“Woah,” Shinra says, sounding awestruck. “You really _must_ be unwell. Usually that would send you right into a rage. You really _should_ \--”

“ _No_ ,” Shizuo says, and closes the door behind him to punctuate as he steps out into the hall and strides away quickly enough to outpace Shinra even if the other comes after him. He makes it to the elevators without any unwanted followers; and then keeps going towards the stairs, letting himself out into the stairwell so he can patter down the whole length of them himself instead of taking the efficiency of the elevator. Even once he reaches the bottom he’s no more composed; he pauses at the front of the apartment complex to draw a cigarette from his pocket and press it to his lips, but when he moves it’s before he’s remembered to catch a light to the paper, and when he paces away down the street it’s with the unlit cigarette at his lips, and his bandaged arm under a bloodstained sleeve, and the weight of a phone full of photographs of him in his pocket.

It’s a long walk to where he’s going, but he figures he could do with the time to think.


	2. Captured

The sun has set by the time Izaya makes it home.

He’s had a busy day. He had a handful of meetings in Ikebukuro: with Shiki, first thing this morning, and then with a few of his contacts, and following up on the loose ends for a side plot he’s been toying with. There was a message to drop off for Celty, and that came with some lingering conversation with Shinra, however abruptly that was forced to cut off by the arrival of their mutual acquaintance; and it was then Izaya realized his primary phone was missing. Calling from one of his extras resulted in no answer, which ruled out the possibility of the Awakusu-kai at least, but that still left a half-dozen locations to double back over. Izaya spent the rest of the afternoon retracing his steps with steadily growing frustration as he met with headshakes from restaurant owners and innocent confusion from his contacts and pawns alike; until finally he arrives back at Shinra’s apartment well after the other visitor to that same should have departed. Izaya is right about that, at least -- there’s no trace of Shizuo around the complex, and no sight of him within when Celty opens the door for Izaya’s knock -- but neither is there any indication of his missing phone, and a perfunctory search fails to reveal it. It seems to have vanished as entirely as if someone reached out and stole it from the pocket of Izaya’s coat, and he’s left to admit defeat before returning to the streets to make his way home with more irritation than success weighting his thoughts.

It’s not like he _needs_ that phone in particular. He has more than enough extras to make do, and he of course has backups of all the most important phone numbers; he could probably recreate his entire contacts list from the array of disposable phones he has on him now or back in his apartment. But there are messages that he’d like to have for reference, and some recordings that might prove valuable in a future situation, and an entire camera roll of photographs he’s spent careful months collecting. The last thought pulls a frown onto his lips as he makes his way along the sidewalk towards his apartment complex; not that he’d ever admit it aloud, but the thought of losing that collection of pictures aches like a deep-set bruise against the inside of his chest. There’s nothing he can do about it, or at least nothing more he can attempt this evening in any case; but it’s still a hurt, the dull, uncomfortable pain of a loss he can do nothing to remedy.

He’s still thinking about it as he takes the elevator up to his floor very near the top of the towering building. There’s no one to see him, nothing more for him to do today; and for the length of the elevator ride he lets himself linger in his disappointment, in the frustration of wondering what happened to his phone and the irritation that will inevitably come with reconstructing the lost data upon it. It would have been easier if he could remember where he lost it, if he knew where it had ended up; but of course he can’t, or he hardly would have left it behind him in the first place. There’s nothing more he can do now, other than sulk about the inconvenience; and then the elevator beeps its arrival at his floor, and Izaya lifts his head and straightens his shoulders to shake himself free of his briefly-indulged unhappiness. He’s still frustrated, of course; but there’s no point in lingering in that for the rest of the night. He’ll go back to his apartment, maybe log into his computer to see if he has any messages from a helpful passer-by who found his lost device; and then he’ll see about ordering some dinner and making the best he can of what’s left of the day.

The elevator doors open smoothly before him and Izaya steps out and into the familiar hallway of his apartment complex. The doors are spaced well apart at this level, their distance from each other speaking to the expansive rooms on the other side; Izaya almost never sees his neighbors beyond a glimpse in the hallway or while waiting for the elevator. It’s pleasant, in its own way, to have his personal space be so quiet and calm in comparison to his public existence; he almost looks forward to the peace of walking down the corridors with nothing but the sound of his own feet to guide him. Izaya takes a breath and lets it huff out in a deliberate attempt to ease himself into greater calm; and then he turns the corner to his own room, and the even pace of his footsteps stutters as he sees the figure leaning against the far side of his apartment door.

He knows his visitor at once. Izaya thinks sometimes he could recognize the man before him with his eyes shut, as if he has adapted the same kind of inexplicable sense for the other’s presence that he has always seemed to have for Izaya; but then, as a fixture of the city Heiwajima Shizuo is hardly subtle in his own right. His uniform is memorable enough, if the beauty of those features so like his heartthrob brother’s weren’t enough to draw eyes; with his bleached-blond hair there’s no way he could be missed by even the most distracted of Ikebukuro residents. The only surprise is what he’s doing here, when Izaya has done nothing at all to draw the other’s ire beyond the mere fact of his existence; but then again, Shizuo seems to use him as something of a relief valve for his temper, and Izaya’s not going to complain about that just because he’s not the direct cause of the other’s mood.

Shizuo hasn’t seen him yet. He’s gazing at the floor, his attention so entirely fixed it’s clear he’s thinking of something beyond the simple pattern of the surface underfoot; Izaya can see the curve of a frown against the other’s lips as he loses himself to whatever subject he’s considering. It’s odd to see him so calm, even if only for this moment before he’s seen Izaya’s approach; for a moment Izaya has the impulse to reach for his phone, to capture this rare opportunity with the click of a shutter. But he doesn’t have his phone, of course, and the reminder of that absence is enough to tighten his shoulders with something almost like anticipation for the relief of the fight that is surely to come. Izaya steadies his footing, and slides his hand into his pocket to cradle against the handle of the knife in his jacket, and when he comes forward it’s with a saunter to his steps, with enough sway to his movement to make his approach down the hallway a performance even before he’s taken a breath to call out.

“Shizu-chan,” he says, pitching his voice loud and clear so it fills the whole space of the hallway. Shizuo’s head snaps up, his focus swinging around with as much speed as if the sound of Izaya’s voice is a surprise, as if it’s not Izaya’s apartment door he’s waiting outside of in the first place. “I didn’t expect to run into you here. You should have let me know you were looking for a fight, I was in your city all day.” Shizuo is still staring at him without moving to so much as straighten from where he’s leaning against the wall; it’s strange to have him so silent, to have his gaze fixed so entirely on Izaya but his usual seething anger absent. Izaya lets his smile drag a little wider, lets his voice dip from teasing towards outright mockery as he draws closer. “What is it you’ve decided I’m responsible for now? Was the weather not to your liking? Did someone look at you strangely? Or is it just my existence that you’re objecting to?”

There’s still nothing. Shizuo is looking straight at Izaya, the dark of his gaze fixed entirely on the other’s face; if it weren’t Izaya would almost think the other hadn’t noticed him, or had impossibly not recognized him in spite of his usual outfit and appearance. Izaya’s footsteps stutter a little, his rhythm giving way as his smile hardens towards a brittle edge; his hand on the knife in his pocket tightens, just in case Shizuo decides to lunge at him right here instead of waiting to make their way to the relative open space of the streets outside.

“What’s wrong?” Izaya asks. He’s almost in front of his door now; he keeps coming, closer than he probably ought, his pace still holding the appearance of calm even as he rocks his balance up onto his toes in expectation of the need for a hasty retreat at the first sign of motion from Shizuo before him. “Did I keep you waiting so long you forgot what you wanted me for?” He draws the knife from his pocket, slow, so the motion is more an invitation than a threat; when he presses his thumb to the blade it’s to slide his touch down against the metal, caressing the flat top of it while he tips his head to the side and lets his lashes go heavy with flirtation as he gazes up at Shizuo. “You don’t need to worry about that. I’m feeling generous today, Shizu-chan, I’d be happy to fight you for no reason at all.”

Shizuo doesn’t react. There’s no crease at his forehead, no flash of his teeth into that savage delight he always brings to their fights; he just keeps watching Izaya, his expression as fixed and unshifting as if the other hadn’t spoken at all. It’s enough to do what all the danger of his strength has never done and run a chill of actual fear down Izaya’s spine; he has a brief, fleeting thought that maybe he should retreat, that he may be safer on the other side of his apartment door. But Shizuo could break through that if he really wanted to, Izaya is certain iron bars wouldn’t be enough to hold back the full force of the other’s temper; and it’s then, just as Izaya is starting to consider turning and bolting at full speed, that Shizuo finally shifts to straighten from the wall and turn to face him.

“I have a reason,” Shizuo says; and then, immediately, before Izaya can find breath for the taunting _thank goodness your memory hasn’t failed you_ he wants to give: “I have your phone.”

Izaya blinks. This statement is so entirely unexpected that it takes him a moment to make sense of it; for the first heartbeat of time he doesn’t even remember that he doesn’t have his phone with him. Then he catches up to the meaning of Shizuo’s words to pull them around into something like coherency, and he can feel relief rush through him, the comfort of it so intense even the usual tension in his shoulders gives way for a moment.

“Oh,” he says, moving to put his knife back in his pocket. “Is that all? You didn’t have to come all the way out here to give it back, you know, you could have just called me and I would have picked it up. I’ve already been looking for it all day, if you had stayed in Ikebukuro you probably would have just run into me there.” He offers his hand to Shizuo, palm-up in expectation of the weight of his phone pressing against it. “Where was it?”

Shizuo doesn’t move his hands from his sides. “I found it at Shinra’s place.”

Izaya’s forehead creases on confusion. “Why didn’t you just leave it there?” he asks. “I went back to check, you could have saved yourself the trip. Or you should have asked Celty to bring it here, she’s always willing to do you favors.”

Shizuo grimaces and shakes his head. “I wanted to bring it myself.”

Izaya frowns up at Shizuo. “Okay,” he says, speaking slowly to make his words the clearer. He wonders if Shizuo’s drunk, although it’s rather early in the day for that. “ _Why_ , though?”

Shizuo’s lashes flutter; his gaze cuts up from under the dark of them. For a moment he just stares, still oddly silent even as he fixes Izaya with enough intent to pass for a glare in other circumstances; but there’s still no anger under it, none of his usual violence curling at his lips or sparking in his eyes. He’s just looking, staring at Izaya like he’s never seen him before in all his life, as if he’s trying to burn the other’s image into his memory, and Izaya can feel himself going warmer no matter how he tries to hold back the giveaway flush from his cheeks. He lifts his chin and raises an eyebrow into an attempt at a taunt he can’t trust to his voice; but Shizuo just ducks his head again, looking down to his hand where it’s hanging heavy at his side.

“I thought it was Shinra’s phone at first,” Shizuo says, as if that answers something, as if that’s any kind of a response to Izaya’s question. “I picked it up when you called it, I was going to give it to him.” His fingers touch the outside of his pocket like he’s grounding himself against the weight inside, but he doesn’t draw the phone free; when he lifts his head again his gaze lands on Izaya like a blow. “You left the photo album open.”

There’s a moment of ringing silence. Izaya can feel it trembling through his body, can feel it settling into his bones; his heartbeat is ringing in his ears, he can feel every rush of blood coursing through him as if it’s his last. There’s no risk of a flush on his face now; he thinks he must be bloodless-white, facing down the dark of those eyes on him that have _seen_ , that have seen his phone and seen through _him_ and -- Izaya struggles into a breath, and reaches for a response, and drags something with the shaky outline of a laugh onto his lips.

“Was it that shocking to you?” he says. His hands are shaking, he thinks; he reaches into his pocket for his apartment keys just to have something to do, just to have something to look at other than the weight of Shizuo’s gaze on him. “I do take pictures sometimes, you know, Shizu-chan. Did you want me to teach you how to do it, is that it?” He takes a step towards his door without lifting his head from the shine of his keys in his hand; it’s easier if he keeps his focus on what he’s doing, if he keeps his mind on the simple familiarity of getting his door open. “There’s no need for this kind of drama, you know, you just--”

“ _Izaya_ ” and there’s a palm slamming against the door just alongside Izaya’s head, so near the impact of ruffles the other’s hair. Izaya goes still with his key in the lock of his apartment, his shoulders still turned to Shizuo just over him. Shizuo’s leaning in towards him, now, as if to catch and hold Izaya in his shadow. “Don’t change the _fucking_ subject.”

Izaya stares at Shizuo’s hand against the door next to him. He can see indentions in the metal around the other’s fingers where the surface gave way to his force. “What subject is that?”

Shizuo growls over Izaya’s shoulder. “Your _phone_ ,” he says. “The photos.” His fingers tighten against the door; the metal creaks protest as it caves in farther. “The photos of _me_ , Izaya-kun.”

“Ah,” Izaya says. “Were there a few of you too? It’s hard to remember, I take so many pictures, you’ll have to--”

“ _Stop_ ” and there’s a hand at Izaya’s shoulder, fingers digging in to drag him around and shove him back against the door behind him. Izaya’s breath rushes out of his lungs as much on adrenaline as with the force, his whole body tenses in anticipation of the pain of bruised skin or broken bones; but the pressure stops shy of doing damage, with Shizuo’s grip against his shoulder bracing him perfectly still without causing him any discomfort. Izaya looks up, his gaze drawn inevitably to the dark of those eyes fixed on him; Shizuo’s forehead is creased on something that looks very nearly like pain, as if Izaya has done him more hurt now than he’s ever managed with all his attacks in the past. Shizuo’s gaze slides over Izaya’s face, his focus dragging over the other’s features like he’s trying to relearn them again, like he’s trying to find something familiar in the lines of Izaya’s expression; the crease at his forehead deepens, his breath rushes out of him in a huff.

“I just want to know,” he says. He doesn’t even sound angry; he sounds tired, confused, as if he’s lost and pleading for direction. His focus comes back to Izaya’s eyes; his lashes flutter over his gaze. “Why do you have so many pictures of me, Izaya?”

Izaya stares up at Shizuo. That hand is still at his shoulder; he can no more break free of it than the metal of the door behind him can resist the force of Shizuo’s fingers bearing down against it. He tells himself it’s that that holds him here, that it’s awareness of futility that keeps him from trying to run; it’s easier to lie to himself than to think about how hard his heart is beating, than to let himself feel the heat shuddering over his skin as the rush of Shizuo’s breathing spills over his lips and against the line of his neck. He lifts his chin fractionally; he can feel his invasion into the space between them as if it’s the opening shot of a war. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Shizu-chan.” Shizuo’s jaw tightens; Izaya can feel his heart picking up pace, can feel his breathing catching faster in his throat, but he doesn’t let it touch his eyes, doesn’t let it drag his mouth into a frown. “I’m sure they were just pictures of the city that you happened to be in.”

“Liar,” Shizuo says, almost without heat on the word. “Tell me the truth, Izaya.”

Izaya’s chin lifts, his body shifting without his intent as if to bridge the few inches of distance between himself and Shizuo. “Or what?” he says, the words purring in his throat like a suggestion. “Are you planning to throw me through the front door of my apartment?” He scoffs a laugh over Shizuo’s mouth in front of his. “That won’t get you the answer you want.”

Shizuo stares at Izaya for a moment. It’s strange to see him like this; his jaw is tight, his forehead is creased, but his eyes are soft, more strained than angry. Izaya has a brief, fleeting wish for his phone and its built-in camera, both surely destroyed by now or as good as, in Shizuo’s control; it’s an illogical, impulsive desire to capture the expression before him, but it’s too habitual to repress.

“No,” Shizuo says. “It won’t.” He sounds very nearly calm; Izaya’s skin shivers with tension, like his instinct is sensing more danger in Shizuo’s tone now than it ever did in the shouted drag of his name in the other’s throat before. Shizuo’s gaze flickers down, his attention skimming over Izaya’s face like he’s trying to pick out the details of the other’s expression; and then his hand loosens, his fingers give way at Izaya’s shoulder. Izaya has a momentary flicker of insane disappointment, as the threat of Shizuo’s hand pinning him still gives way, but then that pressure returns, gripping tight at his chin instead to lock his head in place against the wall.

“Maybe this will,” Shizuo says; and then he ducks in over the gap between them, and his mouth crushes down hard against Izaya’s.

Izaya doesn’t move. Izaya isn’t sure he could move, and not just because of those fingers bracing his chin in place; he feels like the whole of the world has stopped turning, as if existence itself stalled still with that pressure at his mouth. Shizuo isn’t moving, isn’t shifting against Izaya’s mouth or urging entrance past the other’s lips, but that doesn’t matter; Izaya’s breath is still stuck somewhere in his throat, his heart has forgotten how to beat in his chest. His eyes are open, his vision blurred from close-up angles; he can see a yellow haze of Shizuo’s hair before him, can make out the white edge of the other’s collar lying close against the line of his neck. His ears are ringing, or maybe they’re silent, as if the whole of the world has gone stunningly, impossibly quiet in that first moment of his lips collecting the feel of Shizuo’s against them. This can’t be happening, this can’t be real, it must be a fantasy ready to disintegrate with a moment’s inhale; but Shizuo’s still there, still pinning Izaya back against his front door by the strength of his grip and the weight of his body. Izaya’s dizzy, his head is spinning and his thoughts are whirling; his lashes are heavy, they’re fluttering shut over his eyes to block out the distraction of vision as his shoulders sag, as his head shifts, as his lips part -- and Shizuo jerks away, the retreat as harsh as his approach, and Izaya is left with his mouth open, his eyes half-shut, his fingers hanging in midair as instinct reaches out for Shizuo before him. He seizes on a breath, drawing air into his lungs as he closes his fingers to a fist, as he flinches back against the door; but he can hear the rush of Shizuo’s exhale even before he opens his eyes to look up at the other, and he knows himself exposed even before he meets the dark of those eyes on him.

Shizuo is staring at him. His whole face is relaxed, even the tension of confusion that has clung to his forehead and mouth has been swept aside by the clear-sky bright of understanding; but Izaya can’t spare the attention to adequately appreciate that, not when his heart is hammering doubletime in his chest. His lips are parted and he can’t seem to press them together; his cheeks are hot, he can feel the giveaway color burning across them like a flame. His hands are shaking, his gaze is hot, he can feel desire spilling from his lips and shadowed at his eyes and there is nothing he can do to hold it back, not when he has the friction of Shizuo’s lips printed hard against his own.

“I _knew_ it,” Shizuo says, sounding savage and victorious; but Izaya doesn’t have a chance to answer, doesn’t have the opportunity to ask what he means, doesn’t even have a moment to structure words to sense in his slow-moving thoughts, because Shizuo is ducking in over him again and Izaya’s lashes are fluttering shut in expectation as his head tips up wholly unprompted by the hand at his chin to offer his lips to Shizuo’s. Shizuo’s mouth presses to his own -- more gently, this time, like an actual kiss instead of carrying the force of a blow -- and Izaya’s breath spills out of him, straining in his throat into the sound of a groan against Shizuo’s mouth on his. His hand comes out to clutch at Shizuo’s vest, his fingers flex to tighten to fist-tension at the back of Shizuo’s neck as if to hold the other still; but he doesn’t need to worry, doesn’t need to make the effort to keep Shizuo there, because Shizuo’s not pulling away, he’s not retreating and he’s not flinching. He’s pressing closer instead, taking a half-step in to pin Izaya’s legs to the door before his own; his hand drops from Izaya’s chin to grab at his neck, his fingers settling into something like a threat that Izaya is too dizzy to even cringe under. It’s too much, all of it, the pressure and the heat and the sensation like fire in Izaya’s veins, something to turn his bones molten and soft within him, to strip all the strength from his body and leave him pliant against Shizuo’s grip, leave him surrendering to the force of Shizuo’s body against his. His lips are parted against Shizuo’s, his breathing is stuttering to heat against the other’s mouth; but Shizuo’s lips stay pressed together, offering nothing more than the force and the pressure that is still enough all on its own to pull apart every thought Izaya tries to lay hand to before it’s formed. Izaya tips his head farther to the side and reaches out to touch his tongue just against Shizuo’s mouth, a moment of glancing contact as much a suggestion as an exploration; and Shizuo pulls away so suddenly Izaya is left gasping with audible tension on the sound before he can close his mouth around the giveaway of it.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. His voice sounds like thunder; or maybe that’s just the way Izaya is feeling it, maybe it’s just the way it seems to rattle through all the stability of his world to throw him sideways into a new one, bright with the painful clarity of first morning light against night-darkened eyes, an impossible existence where he knows how to crave the friction of Heiwajima Shizuo’s lips. “Tell me.”

Izaya has to struggle to find his voice, but that’s far easier than managing to open his eyes and bring his gaze back into focus on Shizuo’s face. “What?”

“Tell me why.” Shizuo’s knee angles in closer, Shizuo’s body rocks to push Izaya back against the door; Izaya’s back arches, his head tips back against the support behind him as a groan of want drags itself free of his throat. Shizuo’s hand at his neck drops down to grab at his hip instead; Izaya’s fingers at Shizuo’s vest flex in a desperate and useless attempt to ground himself. “Why do you have so many pictures of me on your phone?” He ducks in closer again; Izaya’s head tips to the side of its own accord as Shizuo’s lips near his throat, his neck curving to offer itself reflexively for the press of friction against his pulse point. When Shizuo huffs a breath Izaya can feel the heat of it slide under his collar like fingers seeking out his bare skin. “What do you _do_ with them, Izaya?”

Izaya squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head in a brief, desperate attempt to steady himself. “Nothing,” he lies, tasting the familiar soap-slip of the untruth against the back of his teeth. “You’re a...you’re a danger to the city, Shizu-chan, I’m just trying to keep tabs on you.” Shizuo draws back fractionally from Izaya’s neck; Izaya seizes an inhale and pulls his vision back into focus, willing himself to not feel the retreat as a loss. “I’m trying to keep the city safe.”

Shizuo’s exhale gusts hot against Izaya’s mouth; Izaya is shuddering in response even before he realizes that Shizuo is grinning, the edge of his teeth sharp and white and vicious in the illumination of the hallway. “So you _do_ collect pictures of me.”

“What?” Izaya says, struggling to hold his attention to the words; and then his slow-moving thoughts catch up to his own giveaway speech, and he can feel his face flush to crimson as quickly as his breath catches in his chest.

“Well,” he says, and he can hear himself shaking over the words, can feel the rough of them breaking to obvious uncertainty even as he speaks them but he has to try, he can’t just leave the statement uncontested. “You’re a _monster_ , Shizuo, of course I have to document whatever of your inhuman abilities I can. It’s only reason--” and that’s as far as he gets before Shizuo is ducking in to crush his lips against Izaya’s again, growling something like satisfaction in the back of his throat as he does. Izaya’s lashes dip again, some sound between pain and want wrenches itself free of his throat; and then Shizuo’s mouth opens, Shizuo’s tongue presses rough against the part of Izaya’s lips, and Izaya is opening his mouth at once as the relief of desire overrides any thought of restraint. Shizuo takes his surrender without any hesitation, takes it like it’s his right, as if Izaya’s mouth has always been his to use and taste and claim. The contact is fire, Izaya can feel it rushing down his throat and in to fill the inside of his chest as if it’s his breath itself Shizuo is stripping free of his body to replace with his own, to fill Izaya’s existence with the too-much proof of his presence, until even when Shizuo pulls back to pant over Izaya’s mouth Izaya just presses his lips together to hold the taste of smoke and the promise of blood against his tongue like a coal to warm the shadowy chill that usually fills his body.

“You admitted it,” Shizuo says. Izaya can feel the weight of the words like a bell tolling at the back of his skull, like electricity sparking the whole way down his spine. “That’s a start.” The door behind Izaya’s shoulders creaks; Izaya can’t spare the attention to turn his head and see what Shizuo is doing, but he can feel the metal shift fractionally behind him as the support at his back quivers. “I wonder what else I can get you to admit to?”

Izaya’s heart is racing in his chest; he doesn’t think he’s ever been so uncertain, doesn’t think he’s ever been so afraid. He’s dead sure he’s never been so turned on. It’s hard to find moisture for his lips; even when he struggles himself into speech his voice is lower than it should be, raw and husky with the heat he can’t stop trembling through his body. “What are you going to do to me?” he asks, aiming for something like taunting and not sure he achieves anything more than helpless curiosity. “Pin me against my door and scandalize all my neighbors?” He’s teasing, or trying to; if his whole body goes hot with the very idea of his words, all he can do is hope that the truth of that goes unnoticed by Shizuo before him. “I didn’t think you were that into exhibitionism, Shizu-chan.”

“I’m not,” Shizuo says; and then, before Izaya can find words to press him into the relative safety of more anger, there’s a _click_ of metal, the drag of a lock turning over itself, and the support behind Izaya gives way almost at once, as Shizuo twists the handle into Izaya’s apartment as fast as he turns the key Izaya left in the lock itself. Izaya stumbles backwards, his balance giving way so quickly he doesn’t have the chance to shift his feet into place under him; all he can do is clutch at Shizuo’s neck and trust to the support of the hold at his hip to keep him on his feet. Shizuo’s hand tightens against him, Shizuo growls deep in the back of his throat; but he’s moving too, striding forward and in without waiting for any kind of an invitation from Izaya himself. Izaya’s feet skid against the floor, he struggles to find traction against the sudden force of Shizuo’s motion, and Shizuo is pivoting to turn them backwards, dragging the key free of the lock as he braces his hand against the flat of metal over Izaya’s shoulder. The door slams shut with such force it rattles Izaya’s teeth, and Shizuo shoves Izaya back hard against the flat of it with no more hesitation; Izaya is left gasping for air he can’t seem to find, feeling dizzy and half-delirious as Shizuo looms over him.

“There,” Shizuo says. His hand moves, his fingers shift; Izaya’s keys clatter to the floor and slide away to be lost in some far corner, but Izaya can’t spare the attention to track the silvery glint of them. Shizuo reaches past him for the lock; when he turns it over to bar the door the shudder of the sound runs straight up Izaya’s spine to spark out his coherency before rushing back down to settle itself deep in his hips, a dull ache so familiar it’s hard even to recognize it as the desire it is. “Now you don’t have any audience but me.”

Izaya struggles for a laugh; it comes out half-formed and weak, but it’s still more than he expected to manage. “Trying to get rid of any witnesses, Shizu-chan?”

“Getting rid of _distractions_ ,” Shizuo tells him, with a growl that has Izaya quivering even before Shizuo’s hand comes back to the side of his neck to cradle against the hammering heat of his pulse in his throat, to press the idle strength of the other’s thumb under the angle of his chin to force his head up. “I’m the only thing you need to worry about right now, Izaya” and he’s ducking back in at once, without waiting to watch Izaya’s reaction. His mouth captures Izaya’s beneath it, his tongue demands entrance without hesitating, and Izaya gives in at once, without making even an attempt at resistance. Shizuo’s mouth is hot, it burns like the fire of the cigarettes weighting at the pocket of those dark slacks; and Izaya can’t pretend he doesn’t want it any more than he could really deny the evidence of those photographs filling all the camera roll of his lost phone. He’s wanted this too long, has been craving it with the deep-down hurt of unrequited desire; even this token portion of what he wants is too heady for him to draw back from. He’s never seen Shizuo like this, he doesn’t have the first idea what Shizuo might do to him, might wring from him; and he doesn’t care, can’t find even a shadow of hesitation from all the self-preservation in him. So Izaya shuts his eyes, and he arches into Shizuo’s brutal strength, and he lets himself go pliant to the insistence of those hands and that tongue and those lips against him.

It takes him a moment to react when Shizuo’s hand at his hip shifts. The one at his neck holds perfectly steady, like a vice of a threat or a promise bearing down against speeding heartbeat and fragile bone alike; it’s as much a distraction as the pressure working over Izaya’s tongue and down inside his mouth, as Shizuo licks into him like he wants to taste the whole of Izaya at once. The shift of a few fingers is nothing in comparison, of no more import than the motion of Shizuo’s leg as he steadies his balance; and then there’s friction, heat sudden and ticklish against the lowest part of Izaya’s stomach, and Izaya jerks so suddenly it’s only Shizuo’s similarly rapid retreat that saves him from a bloody lip or worse. “ _Ah_.”

Shizuo gusts an exhale over Izaya’s mouth; it might be a laugh, if it were warmer, if it didn’t have such an edge of satisfaction layering it to shadow. “You’re ticklish.” His fingers slide up higher; his palm presses in against the curve of Izaya’s ribs like he’s looking to collect the span of the other’s breathing against his palm. “I should have guessed.”

“I’m not,” Izaya insists, trying to restrain his trembling and finding it all but impossible as Shizuo’s hand pushes higher up against his chest. His shirt is catching against the other’s wrist, the hem lifting in the wake of Shizuo’s movement; Izaya can feel the cool of the air in his apartment winding in and around the bare skin of his stomach like delicate fingers reaching for the heat radiating off him. He presses his lips tight together and lifts his chin into an imitation of his usual haughtiness; he’s not sure the attempt comes anywhere close to success, but it’s the only thing he can think to do with his shoulders pinned back to his front door and his hand clutching at Shizuo’s neck for support enough to keep him on his feet. “My apologies for not being more blasé with my survival. You could sneeze and break all my ribs at once like this, you’ll forgive me for not being more enthused about it.”

“That’s your excuse?” Shizuo says more than asks. “That you’re _afraid_?” His fingers slide up, his palm traces out against the midline of Izaya’s chest. “I’ve never seen you afraid of anything in your life.” His hand slides fractionally to the side, his fingers splay out to span the rhythm of Izaya’s breathing catching in his chest. “You want me to believe it’s fear that has your heart beating so fast?” Another laugh, sharper this time, better-formed; Izaya can see the flash of Shizuo’s teeth at his friction-red lips, this time. “Come up with a better lie next time, Izaya.”

Izaya wants to protest; Izaya wants to laugh, the bright, hysterical one that is trapped in his throat to choke his breathing out of him. Because he _is_ afraid, he’s so terrified he’s surprised he’s still on his feet; to have Shizuo touching him like this is a dream come true and a nightmare made real at one and the same time. The touch of Shizuo’s hands, the heat of his mouth, the focus of his eyes; and Izaya’s phone in the pocket of those slacks, with the evidence of his own long-kept obsession to strip him down to skin and more, to lay bare everything he is as if his ribs have already cracked under just the glancing weight of Shizuo’s palm against his bare skin. But he can feel heat rising in him just as bright, can feel the dizzy slur of pleasure hazing his thoughts and trembling in his hands; and he can feel the ache for more inside his chest like a knife, like something sharp and desperate that must be set free before it does him more harm than it already has. Izaya takes a breath, feels the strain of it pressing hard against Shizuo’s palm; and then lets it go, and lifts his gaze, and meets Shizuo’s weighted stare with all the feigned calm he can muster.

“Fine,” he says. He’s proud of how steady his voice sounds; it’s as if it’s someone else forming the words, as if he’s listening to a recording instead of shaping the sound at his own lips. “What now, Shizu-chan?”

Shizuo’s lashes dip, his gaze slides down over Izaya’s face; Izaya can feel his skin come alive under the weight of that attention as if it carries the heat of a touch instead of just dark-eyed focus. Shizuo’s fingers at his chest tense, flexing as if to speak to some unspoken desire towards destruction in the other’s body.

“I’m tired of you lying,” Shizuo says, speaking in a dark tone that is no less shadowed for how soft it sounds resonating against the inside of his chest. “Tell me the truth, Izaya. Be honest for once in your life.”

Izaya raises an eyebrow and tips his head back against the wall. “What about?” he asks. He can feel his composure coming back within his grasp; Shizuo’s hold is still pinning him to the wall, Shizuo’s gaze is still locking him in place, but speech is returning to him as the heat of the other’s mouth fades, as the taste of Shizuo’s tongue retreats into desire-blurred memories. “What, would you like me to simply start reciting facts? I could read you the encyclopedia, if you wanted.”

Shizuo’s teeth flash, Shizuo’s breath hisses. “ _No_ ,” he growls. “I want you to tell me about the photos.” His hand at Izaya’s neck tightens, his thumb digs in farther. “What do you do with the _pictures_ , Izaya?”

“They’re for information,” Izaya says at once, without even hesitating over the lie. “Like I told you, Shizu-chan, is it your hearing or your brain that--” and Shizuo’s hand shoves against his chest, Shizuo’s thumb drags hard against him, and Izaya’s voice cuts off to a sharp, gasping inhale as Shizuo’s touch presses tight against his nipple with pinpoint accuracy.

“There’s nothing _in_ them,” Shizuo says. He’s closer, Izaya realizes; he’s leaning in over Izaya against the door, like he’s trying to force them into the same space. “Half of them are a blurry mess, they’re not for _information_.” His thumb presses again, dragging in and over Izaya’s skin; Izaya’s breath hisses past his gritted teeth, his back arches to crest his hips up hard against Shizuo in front of him. “Tell me what you do with them.”

“Reference,” Izaya pants. “They’re for reference, Shizu-chan, that’s all.”

“Yeah.” Shizuo’s hand drops from Izaya’s neck; his palm comes up and under Izaya’s shirt to join the first in pressing against the other’s chest, in marking out curving paths of heat over the thrum of Izaya’s breathing. “Whose reference?”

“Mine,” Izaya says. “No one else would care, they’re…” as his voice gives way like tissue paper to the drag of Shizuo’s fingers curling around his waist, of Shizuo’s hands clasping to span the shape of his body between them. “ _Hh_. They’re just for me.”

“Sure,” Shizuo purrs. There’s shadow in his voice, satisfaction in the back of his throat; one of his hands is sliding down, his fingers pressing against the dip of Izaya’s stomach and fitting against the soft just below his navel. Izaya is having trouble breathing. “What do you do with them?”

“They’re _pictures_ ,” Izaya spits. “I look at them, Shizu-chan, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Shizuo repeats. His tone twists the words into a mockery; the drag of his fingers unfurls them into suggestion. “Just looking?”

Izaya sets his jaw and struggles into a breath without opening his lips. It’s hard to fill his lungs with Shizuo’s palm pressing against his chest, and not for the weight against him. “Yes,” he lies. “What else would I possibly do with them?”

Shizuo huffs a breath. “You are such a liar.”

Izaya makes some show of rolling his eyes. “Sure,” he says. “That’s just like you, to insist on a confession and then refuse to accept the answer. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you, but just because _you_ \--” and then Shizuo’s hand presses down, Shizuo’s palm drags in over the front of his pants, and Izaya’s thoughts and voice break off as one as his eyes go wide, as his throat constricts on a groan. “ _Fuck_ ” he blurts; but his hips are bucking forward, his body is curving up against that sudden pressure, and when his hand drops it’s to clutch at Shizuo’s wrist to brace the other still, or maybe to hold himself steady instead. “ _Shizu-chan_.”

“You hate me.” It’s hard to listen to Shizuo’s words, hard to pay attention to the meaning of his speech when Izaya can feel his whole body thrumming in answer to that pressure against him, can feel his heart speeding in his chest under the weight of Shizuo’s palm. “You take pictures of me for _information_.” Shizuo’s hand presses in closer; Izaya’s head goes back, his breath rushes from him. “You don’t like this.” His thumb shifts, digging in and under to threaten the fly of Izaya’s pants, and Izaya can feel his cock jerk in answer, as if it intends to break free of its confines by its own force. “You want me to leave you alone.” Shizuo’s hands flex, his arms press; and Izaya is shoved back hard against the door, his breath rushing from him as his grip on Shizuo’s shoulder is knocked loose, as he’s left pinned in place against the support behind him and Shizuo’s hold on him. Shizuo’s eyes are dark when Izaya lifts his focus enough to meet them; his mouth is set, his jaw as solid as a brick wall. There’s no teasing in his expression, none of the sharp-edged pleasure that Izaya can usually find behind the other’s bared teeth and lilting growl; he’s never seen Shizuo look so serious. “Is that the truth?”

Izaya stares into Shizuo’s eyes on him. His heart is racing, his body is trembling; he thinks without that hold on him he would have collapsed to his knees, would have found his strength stripped from him to lay him out across his own entryway for the unflinching focus in those shadowed eyes. He wants to lie, he wants to twist his tongue around the comforting familiarity of untruths and taunts and misdirection, he wants to retreat back to the elegance of the facade he has built for himself; and all he can find is ash on his tongue, as if he’s one of Shizuo’s cigarettes burned down by the other’s casual flame. He could lie, he could smile and laugh and duck his head into a nod; and he knows, knows without having to ask, that Shizuo would let him go, would pull back and turn on his heel and leave the apartment. He’d leave Izaya’s keys, might even leave his phone; and it would be the last Izaya would ever see of him, the last he’d ever hear of that voice. The taste of Shizuo’s mouth, the heat of his touch, the sound of his breathing: all memories too soon worn threadbare, cold comfort without the force of reality behind them. If Izaya lies he can push Shizuo away, can pull those hands from his body and that mouth from his lips and can be free of his fantasies, of his daydreams, of his foolish, idle hopes; and he presses his lips together, and he shuts his eyes, and he shakes his head.

“No.” He doesn’t recognize his own voice; it sounds strange, strained, desperate in his throat. “It’s not.”

Izaya doesn’t open his eyes to see the satisfaction spread across Shizuo’s face; he doesn’t need to, not with the low growl of sound that purrs in the other’s throat. There’s the scuff of a footstep, the press of a body against him; Shizuo’s fingers shift at Izaya’s pants, his hand curling to cup against the heat of the other’s cock through the fabric, and Izaya can feel his thighs tremble with the pressure.

“Izaya,” Shizuo says. His fingers slide over Izaya’s chest, his knee presses between the other’s legs. “What do you do with the pictures?”

Izaya presses his lips together tight; he can hear the whimper in his throat when he swallows in an attempt to drag himself back to coherency. “I look at them,” he says. “In the city, sometimes, when I’m bored.” Shizuo’s thumb draws up over his pants; the button shifts under his touch, the strain of the fabric thrumming with suggestion. Izaya ducks his head down and gusts a breath as he opens his eyes to watch Shizuo’s hand working over his clothes. “When I can’t find you.”

“You go out looking for me,” Shizuo says. His fingers pull up, giving up their clasp against Izaya’s cock to work at the other’s fly instead; Izaya can’t catch his breath for how fast his heart is hammering under Shizuo’s palm. “Why?”

“I want to see you,” Izaya says. Shizuo draws his hand back from Izaya’s chest to clutch at a handful of his shirt and drag it up towards his head; Izaya lifts his head and arms at once to let Shizuo strip his shirt free along with the weight of his coat. It’s difficult to manage one-handed, the more so for the impatient tangle Shizuo has made of the clothes, but force wins out over reason, and then Shizuo is throwing Izaya’s shirt and coat aside in one bundle, growling satisfaction as he returns his palm to Izaya’s chest, as his fingers go back to tracing over the other’s skin. Izaya lets himself fall back against the door behind him -- or he’s pushed there, it’s hard to tell if it’s his own choice or Shizuo’s touch urging him back -- and gasps for air he can’t seem to find as Shizuo’s fingers slide to map out the lines of his chest, as Shizuo’s palm slips farther down as his fly comes open. “I...I’m bored, sometimes.”

“And you want a fight?” Shizuo’s fingers push, Izaya’s pants come open; Izaya has to fight back the urge to buck his hips up and into the weight of those fingers against him, and even with conscious effort he’s not sure he wholly succeeds in repressing the impulse. “Couldn’t you go piss off a gang or something and leave me alone?”

“No,” Izaya says. “No, it’s not the same.”

“Why not,” Shizuo says instead of asking. His hand urges down; Izaya’s clothes slide against his skin, the fabric giving way to the intention of Shizuo’s fingers. “Tell me.”

“Because it’s you.” Shizuo’s touch works against the edge of Izaya’s underwear; Izaya’s breath catches, his head tips forward and down to hide his expression in the shadow of his hair. “Because I want to see you. I want you to see me.” Shizuo’s fingers are winding farther down, as if Izaya’s words are paving a path for them to follow; Izaya lifts his hand to clutch at Shizuo’s forearm to brace himself steady, but it doesn’t do much to help him and it has no effect at all on Shizuo’s movement as those fingers reach out into the shadow of fabric and towards the heat of flushed desire. “Because I want you, Shizu-chan.”

Shizuo’s fingers shift, his hand dips down; for a breath his fingertips are pressing to Izaya’s cock, his little finger trailing up against the curve of the other’s length before him. Izaya jerks with the contact, the air in his lungs spills from his lips; and Shizuo’s hand draws away again, pressing flat to the lowest point of his abdomen as if to undo even that glancing contact. Izaya’s hips buck, Izaya’s throat tightens on a groan of frustration, and Shizuo’s hand at his chest is pushing up, his fingers catching at Izaya’s chin to force the other’s head up.

“Look up,” Shizuo’s voice insists. His shoulder comes in, his body rocks hard against Izaya’s. “Izaya, look at me.”

“Damn it,” Izaya hisses, his thighs twitching as he tries without success to rock up against Shizuo’s wrist. “Don’t be a _tease_ , Shizu-chan.”

“ _Look at me_ ,” Shizuo snaps; and his fingers shove at Izaya’s head, and Izaya’s chin lifts, his gaze pulled up by force from the angle of Shizuo’s wrist against his body. Shizuo’s jaw is set, his eyes are stormy and dark; he looks angry at last, as if the weight of his touch is a blow instead of a caress. His fingers tighten at Izaya’s jaw, his thumb pressing close to lock the other’s head in place; Izaya hisses a breath past his teeth. “Tell me again.”

“Tell you what,” Izaya says; and Shizuo’s hand draws up, those fingers slide farther from his cock, and he can feel his whole body go taut with panic. His grip at Shizuo’s arm flexes, his hips jerk again, but when he breathes out it’s with a sob on the sound, he can taste resignation bitter on his tongue.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spits. “I want you.”

Shizuo’s breath rushes from him at once, the heat of it curling hot over Izaya’s mouth. “Yes,” he says; and his hand comes down, his fingers curling into a grip around Izaya’s cock before Izaya can even form the words to a plea. Izaya’s lashes flutter, his head tries to tip back; but Shizuo’s fingers are there to lock him in place, and when his vision clears from the first rush of sensation those dark eyes are still fixed full on him, still watching every flicker of reaction that spills over his face. “Tell me, Izaya.”

Izaya’s fingers twist against Shizuo’s sleeve, his hold dragging against the other’s shirt before he can catch a breath to speak; Shizuo’s grip against him doesn’t so much as tremor, the slide of his hold doesn’t pause. “I want you,” he repeats. “I have for a long time, I--” Shizuo’s hand pulls, Izaya’s words fail; for a moment he can’t see anything at all for the haze that washes over his vision. “ _Fuck_.”

“How long?” Shizuo’s voice seems to be coming from a long way away but the fit of his fingers is more real than anything Izaya has ever imagined could exist; the twist of his hand feels like it’s running straight up the whole length of Izaya’s spine.

Izaya tries to shake his head; the motion catches and stalls against Shizuo’s grip on him but he hardly notices. “A while.”

“A while,” Shizuo repeats back. His leg presses Izaya closer against the door; when he rocks in Izaya can feel the friction against the inside of his thighs, can feel the flex of Shizuo’s leg pressing in against his balls inside his pants. “How long is a while?”

“Months,” Izaya says. “Years. I don’t know.” He tries to turn his head, tries to duck away from the force of those eyes, but he can no more escape than he could make himself pull away from that hold on him. “Since high school.”

“Jesus,” Shizuo groans. “All this time?”

Izaya flinches, cringing back from the force of that gaze on him; but there’s nothing he can do, there’s nowhere he can go, and Shizuo’s hand is still stroking over him, Shizuo’s gaze is still drinking in every flicker of heat across his expression. “Since we met,” he says. “It’s why I wanted to introduce myself to you that first day.”

Shizuo’s laugh is rough-edged enough to sound like a scoff. “That’s what you wanted?” he asks. “You’ve been trying to kill me for years and all this time you’ve just been fantasizing about me touching you?”

“Yes,” Izaya says. “Touching me, kissing me, fucking me.” He drags his attention up to meet Shizuo’s gaze on him; it’s dizzying, to look straight into that intention, but there’s nowhere for Izaya to hide in any case, not with his cock quivering against Shizuo’s hold with every stroke, with every pull. “That’s what the pictures are for, Shizu-chan. It’s better to have photographs than to rely on my imagination.”

Shizuo’s mouth curves onto a savage smile; the flash of it draws Izaya’s attention inevitably to the other’s lips, to the tight line of them as Shizuo grins at him. “That’s it, then,” he says. “You snuck photos of me so you’d have something to jerk off to back at home.”

“Yes,” Izaya says. “It seemed like the best I was going to get, under the circumstances.”

“You’re not exactly encouraging,” Shizuo says. “Kind of hard for me to know you wanted this if you didn’t tell me.” He tips in closer until his shoulders are pressing flush against Izaya’s; when he gusts an exhale Izaya can feel it spill over the part of his lips. “ _Were_ you ever going to tell me?”

Izaya bares his teeth in what might charitably be called a smile. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” he manages. “But you never fail to surprise me, Shizu-chan.” He shuts his eyes and lets himself go slack to Shizuo’s hold for a moment. “At least I’m getting a handjob out of it, right?”

The bite on the words is hardly audible at all, Izaya thinks; not that they’re anything like sincere, of course, but under the circumstances he can’t keep the heat from spilling up his throat to make his pleasure, at least, utterly evident. It’s not like it matters anyway; Shizuo knows, now, maybe knew as soon as he saw those giveaway pictures on Izaya’s misplaced phone. This is already more than Izaya could have hoped to gain; having the print of Shizuo’s hands on him to urge him into pleasure is almost more than he can bear. It will be enough, he tells himself, to have this one memory, to purchase this satisfaction with the sacrifice of his dignity; and then the movement of Shizuo’s hand stalls, the pressure of his grip goes slack, and Izaya’s whole body goes chill with panic even before Shizuo pulls his hand up and out of the loosened front of the other’s pants.

“Oh come _on_ ,” he snaps, opening his eyes to fix Shizuo with as much anger as he can muster from his frustrated hurt. “Are you honestly _that_ petty?”

“No,” Shizuo says; and he’s moving before Izaya has a chance to make sense of the action, ducking down at the same time he lets his hold on Izaya’s chin go. Izaya lifts a hand to reach for Shizuo -- to stop him, to shove him, he doesn’t know which -- and it’s just as his hand brushes Shizuo’s shoulder that his feet come up off the ground as his entire weight lifts to a vice grip around his legs. Izaya yelps with far less dignity on the sound than he could hope for and clutches desperately at the back of Shizuo’s shirt to keep himself from toppling forward face-first into his entryway; but he’s not falling, and Shizuo’s grip on him isn’t easing. Izaya is just tipping forward, his center of mass urged up and over Shizuo’s shoulder, and it’s as Shizuo takes a step back towards the edge of the tiled entrance that Izaya realizes what Shizuo is doing, even if he can’t make sense of why.

“Where are you going?” Izaya’s attention swings back towards the door as the possibility of some kind of public humiliation flashes through his mind. “Why did you stop?”

“This isn’t the right place for this,” Shizuo says. He catches the heel of one shoe under the toe of the other to carefully slide his foot free; it’s a strangely charming consideration for Izaya’s apartment, given that he currently has his more than half-naked archenemy casually thrown over his shoulder. He steps out of his other shoe as carefully before sliding them to the corner of the entryway with his toes; when he steps forward it’s in just his socks. It’s the only piece of clothing he’s shed since they arrived. “Where’s the bedroom?”

Izaya coughs over a disbelieving laugh. “Are you serious?” he asks. “Years of trying to kill me on sight and now you want an appropriate setting before you jerk me off? You hardly have to worry about me, Shizu-chan, escaping with my life is about the most tenderness I’m hoping for from this.”

“Shut up.” Shizuo doesn’t even sound properly angry; more like he’s repeating the words because they need to be said, like he’s running through a mantra before getting to the important parts of his speech. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“I don’t even have my shoes off yet,” Izaya protests. “I _really_ should leave them in the entryway, it’s hardly sanitary otherwise.”

Shizuo growls in the back of his throat, something akin to the familiar heat of his usual anger; that’s all the warning Izaya gets before he’s pushed farther forward to tip sharply over Shizuo’s shoulder. His balance gives way as his hips come up over the support of Shizuo beneath him, Izaya hisses and reaches to clutch desperately at Shizuo’s belt in an attempt to save himself; and his weight catches at Shizuo’s arm bracing around his knees to keep him steady. Izaya’s left hanging there, breathless and dizzy as the blood rushes to his head while there’s a pull at his feet, the rough force of Shizuo dragging off first one shoe and then the other. Shizuo shifts, there’s a clatter as he tosses Izaya’s shoes back towards the door with far less care than he showed his own; and then he hitches the other forward again, and Izaya gasps a breath of more relief than he would care to admit to before he speaks without being prompted. “Upstairs, the second door on the right.”

Shizuo doesn’t hesitate in acting on Izaya’s words. He strides away at once, carrying Izaya over his shoulder without so much as a stumble to indicate that he’s bearing any kind of weight at all; Izaya doesn’t think he would cause the other any trouble even were he struggling to break free of that casual arm slung around his legs. He doesn’t struggle; when they reach the stairs Izaya even clutches against Shizuo’s shirt in an instinctive effort to keep himself steady as the floor veers away from him with each step Shizuo takes. It makes Izaya feel dizzy, with his feet off the ground and his whole balance given over to that offhand support under him; it makes him glad Shizuo can’t see his face, that he doesn’t have an audience for the heat that burns itself to clarity across his cheeks as Shizuo carries him up the stairs and towards the bedroom. He can’t break free, couldn’t drag himself loose even if he were willing to risk the fall that would come with success; and he doesn’t want to in any case. There’s something heady about feeling so helpless, about being so entirely at Shizuo’s mercy, until by the time Shizuo is clearing the topmost step and moving forward into the hall Izaya has let himself go completely slack against the other’s shoulder, has surrendered in truth even if he hasn’t given voice to it as yet. He’s undone, his facade is shattered and his resistance is strengthless; all he can do now is submit to whatever it is Shizuo wishes to do with him, for as long as Shizuo’s interest keeps him here.

Shizuo’s not gentle about tossing Izaya onto the bed. Izaya’s grateful to the soft of the mattress and the thick of the blankets that he lands atop; without them the impact would be far more bruising pain than the simple blow to knock the wind from him that it is. It’s still forceful enough to blow his eyes wide and leave his lungs empty of even air to whimper; and it’s while he’s lying there sprawled over his sheets that Shizuo grabs at the waistband of his pants and drags hard to strip the rest of Izaya’s clothing down and off his unresisting form. Fabric slides over flushed skin, Izaya’s clothes giving way to Shizuo’s touch as surely as Izaya himself has; and then Shizuo is tossing everything aside with careless haste, and Izaya is left stripped to skin and spread out for Shizuo’s consideration across the soft of his bed. Izaya shuts his eyes for a moment, feeling his heart pounding on adrenaline as his cheeks flush with self-conscious heat; and then he tips his chin down and opens his eyes, because he can’t resist the desire to see how Shizuo is looking at him.

Shizuo is staring. There’s no hesitation in his gaze, not even a flush of embarrassment across his cheeks; he’s just looking at Izaya bare before him, his eyes half-lidded with something part satisfaction and part appreciation, as if he’s enjoying the other’s vulnerability as much as the simple aesthetics of his naked form. His usual uniform is still entirely in place, as smooth as if Izaya hasn’t so much as touched him; it makes him look composed, almost proprietary as he considers the display he’s made of the other. It makes Izaya’s face burn, makes his half-hard cock twitch towards arousal once more; but Shizuo doesn’t reach back out for him, doesn’t linger over this proof of Izaya’s desire. He turns aside, leaving Izaya where he lies with dismissive unconcern, and Izaya shuts his eyes and presses his lips tight together on the whimper that wants to break free of his throat. There’s the sound of footsteps -- moving across the room rather than back towards the door, thankfully -- and then a drawer opening and the rattle of objects knocking within it. Izaya doesn’t say anything, to ask what Shizuo is doing or to offer taunting or advice either one; he just lies still, feeling his bare skin pebble with the chill of the air while his blood runs hot in his veins to swell his untouched cock back to full hardness again.

Izaya doesn’t reach to touch himself, doesn’t lift his hand to curl his fingers around the swell of his cock even to hold himself to the anticipation of pleasure. He doesn’t need to, for one thing, and for another it seems wrong, somehow, to press his fingers in and over skin Shizuo has already claimed as his own. Izaya has a brief, hazy thought to wonder if he’ll ever be able to jerk himself off again after this, if he’ll ever be really satisfied now that he’s had the reality of Shizuo’s grip against him instead of just the fantasy of it; and then there’s the sound of plastic clicking, the lid of a bottle moving, and Izaya loses his breath to a surge of anticipation even before the end of the bed shifts with the weight of Shizuo’s knees against it.

“Izaya.” Shizuo’s voice isn’t angry, isn’t heated with irritation; he sounds confident, self-assured, as if certain of Izaya’s response before he gets it. He’s not wrong, either; Izaya is opening his eyes as soon as Shizuo speaks his name, his attention coming down to answer the other’s call as if it were a direct command. Shizuo has one hand held out away from him, his fingers glistening slick with the liquid coating them; Izaya’s focus catches there, his breath spilling from him in a surge of anticipation even as Shizuo tosses aside the bottle of lube and reaches out to grab against the inside of his knee. Izaya’s leg comes up and out, his body as pliant to Shizuo’s force as his attention proved, and Shizuo reaches out without any hesitation to press his fingers against the tight strain of Izaya’s entrance. Izaya groans over a breath, his hands catch to fist against the sheets under him, and Shizuo slides in closer, settling himself into greater comfort between Izaya’s legs as his touch draws wet over the heat of the other’s skin. “Tell me.”

Izaya huffs a laugh, hears the sound break over tremors in his throat. “What else do you want to hear?” he asks. “You already know everything I’ve been trying to keep secret.” He ducks his head in the general direction of his hips, where his cock is straining to dark-flushed heat over the tension of his stomach. “You can see it for yourself.”

“I don’t care,” Shizuo says. His fingers rub against Izaya’s entrance, pressing wet against the other’s body without dipping in to fill the ache Izaya can feel knotting nearly to pain down low in his abdomen. “I want to hear you say it again.”

Izaya feels the strain in him: the pressure in his balls, the ache at his entrance, the flutter of heat at his stomach and in his thighs and against his ribs, where his lungs are struggling to keep time with their own rhythm. He can feel the want peaking higher, can feel need honing itself to a razor edge against the idle, almost teasing press of Shizuo’s fingers; and he can taste surrender on his tongue, can feel capitulation in every tremor of his body. He takes a breath, and he lets his hands go slack; and he shuts his eyes, and he speaks.

“I want you.” Shizuo’s touch bears down against him; the tip of one finger pushes against Izaya’s entrance, demanding admission from the instinctive tension of the other’s body. “I’ve wanted you for years. Since I first saw you.” The pressure increases, Izaya’s breath catches; and then Shizuo’s finger slides up and in, his touch breaching the strain of Izaya’s body, and Izaya’s next words spill from him in a rush of relief, as if they’re being pushed out of him by that pressure working inside him. “I just want your attention, I just want you to--to see me, Shizu-chan.” Shizuo’s touch delves deeper, pushing up and into Izaya as if urged forward by his words; Izaya reaches for more, desperate for honesty enough to urge Shizuo into giving him more, deeper, harder. “I collect pictures of you to have something to look at when I’m home alone, when I can’t find you in the city. Sometimes I-- _oh_ \--I imagine you coming to find me, breaking down my door and finding me on the couch whimpering your name while I jerk myself off.” Shizuo’s finger thrusts forward to its full depth, the whole length of it sinking into the grip of Izaya’s body; Izaya clenches around it, reflex tightening him against the intrusion even as his toes curl and his breath catches on heat.

“I always think about you,” he gasps. Shizuo’s touch draws back, Shizuo’s finger slides forward; Izaya’s back arches, his body curving itself into response even as he struggles for words to keep Shizuo where he is, to keep him moving into more. “In bed, at home, in the city. You’re always on my mind, Shizu-chan, I can’t-- _fuck_ \--get away from you.” Shizuo’s finding a rhythm for his movement, a steady thrust of his arm that Izaya can feel jolting against him with every stroke the other takes; Izaya can’t locate the pattern of his breathing, can’t steady himself to calm. “It’s always been like that. Since high school, you’re...everything.” Shizuo’s hand draws back, his finger slides almost out of Izaya entirely; and there’s the press of a second, the promise of more written in the wet fingerprint touching to Izaya’s entrance already fluttering around the first digit.

“There’s no one I want more than you,” Izaya gasps; and Shizuo thrusts into him at once, coupling his fingers into a single rough stroke. Izaya moans with the force, his fingers tightening to fists on the sheets beneath him as his head tips sharply back; but he’s gasping for air, struggling for words as quickly as he can force himself into them. “You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, you’re the only person I-- _ah_ ” as Shizuo’s fingers thrust in against him, as his coherency gives way to a starbright burst of heat. “ _Shizuo_.”

“Keep talking.” Shizuo’s hold at Izaya’s knee gives way, his hand drops to close at the other’s hip instead; when he pulls it’s hard enough to sink Izaya deeper onto his fingers, to brace the other still against the forward stroke of his arm. “Don’t stop, Izaya.”

“I hate it,” Izaya half-gasps, half-sobs. “I want you so _much_ and I hate it, I hate that you hate me and I hate everyone who gets to have you with them and I just _want_ \--” Shizuo’s fingers force into him, Shizuo’s touch strains into the space of Izaya’s body, and Izaya can feel his whole existence stretching taut in the grip of his fingers on the sheets and the pull of his arms and the helpless, uncontrollable tremor running through his legs and curling in his toes. “I want you to _love_ me.”

“Why?” Shizuo’s voice sounds impossibly far away; like an echo off a distant building, like the voice of some unreachable god. “Tell me, Izaya.”

“Because,” Izaya wails. “Because I love you, Shizuo” and Shizuo’s fingers drive home, and Izaya’s words give way to a moan as his entire body convulses in one long, straining spasm of helpless pleasure. His toes are curling, his hands are fisting, his cock is twitching towards his stomach; and his voice is gone at last, speech stripped from him with the force of those last words. His legs are shaking, his breath is catching, his vision is blurry; the only fixed point is Shizuo’s paired fingers, pressing hard inside him without so much as quivering as Izaya comes around the other’s touch.

Izaya doesn’t know how long it takes him to come back to himself. His grasp on reality has come loose, stripped away somewhere between the press of Shizuo’s mouth to his and, now, the friction of Shizuo’s fingers stroking inside him. He thinks he could stay here forever, maybe, trembling through aftershocks of pleasure with every flex of his body around that pressure; but then the hand at his hip tightens, Shizuo’s grip presses tight against him, and when he pulls there’s nothing Izaya can do to stop the slick draw of the other’s fingers sliding back out of him. He whimpers over a breath, the loss too clear and his thoughts too raw for him to hold back voicing the displeasure; but then Shizuo’s touch is gone, and Izaya is left with the cold chill of reality to bring him back to the clarity of the present moment. He’s lying sprawled over his bed, his whole body spread wide in offering to Shizuo kneeling between his thighs; the heat of the orgasm Shizuo pulled from him is drying against his stomach, the sound of his confession is still hanging in the air between them. Izaya shuts his eyes for a moment, feels the weight of his surrender crushing down against him with more weight than even Shizuo’s touch forced onto him; and then he takes a breath, and he steadies himself under the impossible burden, and he opens his eyes to look down at Shizuo still kneeling between his legs.

“You don’t have to stay,” Izaya says. He’s aiming for casual dismissal, as if he couldn’t care less about the subject; the words come out with a tremor instead, shaking audibly in the back of his throat as he speaks them, but he can’t find any more strength with which to smooth their edges. He struggles for a smile; his lips curve, anyway, although he can feel his eyes burning with something far closer to tears instead. “I can see to cleaning myself up, I assure you. Unless you want to linger in your complete victory?”

Shizuo blinks, his mouth pulling into a frown as he gazes at Izaya. There’s something strange in his eyes, some weight Izaya can’t make sense of even before he shakes his head as if to throw off some stray thought. “My _victory_?”

“Yes,” Izaya says. “You’ve heard all my secrets.” He unwinds his fingers from the sheets to lift a hand and gesture dismissively towards the expanse of his bare skin. “I don’t have anything else that I _can_ hide, under the circumstances. You’ve gotten everything you want from me, you can go back to Ikebukuro and revel in your triumph.”

“It’s not--” Shizuo starts, with something like his old edge on his tone; but it flickers and fades, a candleflame in a high wind even before he closes his mouth and grimaces. “You _love_ me.”

Izaya presses his lips together so tightly he can feel the color drain from them. He stares at Shizuo for a moment, feeling embarrassment crest to strain in the whole of his body; and then he grimaces and ducks his head in surrender. “Yes.”

“You want me.” Shizuo’s hand at Izaya’s hip tightens again; his thumb digs in against Izaya’s skin. “You’ve wanted me for _years_.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Izaya says, and lifts his head to glare at Shizuo with as much anger as he can muster from the shame burning through all his body. “Are you done laughing at me?””

Shizuo shakes his head sharply. “I’m not laughing,” he says; and he’s leaning forward, and he’s reaching out, and his hand is closing at the back of Izaya’s head before Izaya can find the words to ask what he _is_ doing. Fingers close against Izaya’s hair, Shizuo’s hold pulls Izaya’s head back and up; and then lips are pressing against Izaya’s own, Shizuo’s tongue is urging against his mouth, and Izaya is giving way even as confusion steals the clarity of his thought to sweep it into heat. His lips are parting, Shizuo’s tongue is pressing heat far into his mouth; and then Shizuo rocks in against him, the smooth dark of his pants drags over Izaya’s skin, and there’s the friction of solid heat too clear against the inside of Izaya’s thigh to be mistaken for anything other than the arousal it is. Izaya groans into Shizuo’s mouth, the sound startled out of him in spite of himself, and Shizuo pulls back by an inch to gasp for air against his lips, his breathing gone audibly ragged on the strain of heat.

“I want you,” he says, in a tone Izaya’s never before, something hot and low and as dark as the silent hours of the night. His hand at Izaya’s hair falls away to drop down instead, where the force of his hips is pressing tight against Izaya’s skin; Izaya’s breath catches as Shizuo’s fingers fumble with the button of his slacks, as he feels the drag of a zipper coming down. “Fuck, Izaya, I want you so _bad_.”

“Why?” Izaya blurts; because this is a fantasy, this is a dream, this is everything he’s ever wanted; and it’s an impossibility, an illusion, too much to possibly be real even as Shizuo’s fingers against his thigh pull at crisp fabric to force his pants open and clear of his arousal. “You _hate_ me.”

Shizuo shakes his head; Izaya can feel the motion against his forehead, where Shizuo is pressing close against him. “I don’t,” he says. There’s heat at Izaya’s thigh, a solid weight sliding against him; Izaya loses his breath at the feel, at the reality of Shizuo’s cock pressing hot with desire to his skin. “I don’t hate you.”

“You do,” Izaya insists. Shizuo rocks in closer, his movements rough with want; his hand catches at Izaya’s thigh, his hold shoves the other’s legs strainingly wide to make space for himself. Izaya grabs for Shizuo’s shoulder in some half-thought idea to brace himself against the movement; but Shizuo is already letting his hand fall back to himself, already ducking his head as he grips against the base of his cock so he can guide himself into place. “You don’t _want_ me, you--” and then the head of Shizuo’s cock is pressing against Izaya’s body, the blunt heat of it settling into place against his entrance, and Izaya’s statement of reality gives way as the undeniable, immediate truth of Shizuo’s desire urges against him.

“I do,” Shizuo says, his voice low and as hot as that friction at Izaya’s entrance; and his hips buck forward, his whole body cresting forward towards Izaya pinned still under him, and Izaya gives way, his body opening for Shizuo’s use just for the asking. Shizuo’s cock is wider than his fingers, the heat of it strains hard against the natural tension of Izaya’s body; but Izaya is held still by the hand against him, and Shizuo’s body is pressing for admission, and in the end all the tension Izaya’s reflex can muster just serves to draw the friction of Shizuo’s cock sliding forward and into him impossibly, exquisitely hot. Izaya shudders through what feels like the entirety of his existence, a ripple like a second orgasm quivering through him as Shizuo’s body penetrates deep into the space of his own; and over him Shizuo is gasping over a breath, sounding as undone in his own action as Izaya feels by it.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Shizuo pants, his voice breaking into some emotion Izaya’s never heard from him before, something desperate and all but pleading. “I didn’t think you’d--” as his hips come forward, as his body rocks in with all the force of instinct against Izaya’s beneath him. “You’re so _hot_.”

“Shizuo,” Izaya gasps. There’s pressure inside him, too much, it’s dragging over nerve endings made sensitive by the work of Shizuo’s fingers, by the pulse of orgasm that Shizuo already drew from Izaya’s surrender; but when Shizuo’s cock moves into him it’s heat Izaya tastes on his tongue, it’s the ache of satisfaction he feels forming itself low down in his abdomen. “I--” and Shizuo draws back by an inch, barely enough distance to give himself the space to thrust forward in a sharp burst of sensation that tightens Izaya’s thighs around Shizuo’s hips, that angles his head back against the pillows beneath him. “ _Ah_.”

Shizuo hisses against the set of his teeth. “You’re too tight,” he says; but the words aren’t the protest they sound, judging from the force of his hips as he bucks forward to sink himself into Izaya again. The zipper of his undone slacks catches against Izaya’s skin; he can feel the teeth of it printing close against him, trapped between the flex of Shizuo’s body and the open angle of his own. “God, Izaya, you feel good.”

Izaya hiccups over a breath and finds the outline of a laugh from somewhere around the hammering of his heart in his chest, the spasm of his lungs as he chokes for air from the force of sensation rippling over him. “At least there’s that,” he says. He lets the sheets under him go so he can reach up instead to clutch against the back of Shizuo’s collar in some half-thought attempt to steady himself. “Am I a better fuck than you thought I’d be?”

“I didn’t,” Shizuo growls. “I didn’t think about it.”

“Never?” Izaya asks. His vision is blurring, it’s hard to keep his focus, but the teasing comes easy, the huff of breathless laughter spills from his lips like it’s being carried on the heat surging up through him with every forward stroke of Shizuo’s cock straining within him. “All these years and you never once thought about--about pushing me up against some dark alley or some abandoned storefront and just having your way with me?”

Shizuo groans in the back of his throat; his hips snap forward hard enough to knock the air from Izaya’s lungs in a half-strangled moan. “ _God_.” His hand at Izaya’s hip slides down, his fingers dig in hard against the give of the other’s thigh as he drags Izaya up off the bed and closer to him. “No, I didn’t-- _fuck_ ,” as his weight rocks forward sharply to thrust into Izaya under him. “I didn’t think I’d want you like this.”

“It’s instinct,” Izaya gasps. “I should have realized it would be that.”

“ _No_ ” and Shizuo moves so hard Izaya loses his voice entirely to the force of the friction that spikes through him, electricity pulsing out into his whole body to curve up the dip of his spine with the impulse of Shizuo driving forward into him. “It’s not just...just sex.” Shizuo’s hand at Izaya’s thigh slides up again, drawing up over the curve of the other’s ass to settle at the dip of his spine, to steady him close against Shizuo’s body; Izaya can’t pull himself away even if he wanted to. He’s held in place by that hand bracing him just off the bed, reliant on Shizuo’s hold more than the support of the sheets under him; and at his shoulder Shizuo is still panting over air, his head ducked down until his mouth is almost touching Izaya’s collarbone, until his lips are nearly skimming the force of Izaya’s pulse in his throat. “Hearing you, watching you.” His hand pulls closer; Izaya’s body curves in answer, his hips lifting until the renewed heat of his cock is skimming against Shizuo’s vest, until Shizuo’s clothes are in some danger from the come still sticky across Izaya’s stomach.

“I’ve never seen anything as hot as you coming for me,” Shizuo growls against the curve of Izaya’s neck. “I want that. I want _you_.” He’s moving faster, as if his body is being driven onward by his words; Izaya has both arms around Shizuo’s neck, now, is clinging to the other with all the strength he can find in him, but he’s sure it’s more that hand pinning him friction-close against Shizuo’s vest that is keeping him where he is than his own pleasure-shaky hold.

“You love me.” Another forward thrust; Izaya is feeling lightheaded, he can’t find his breath, he can’t ease back the strain building against his spine and trembling against the whole of his legs to arch at his feet and curl in his toes. “I never thought anyone would love me. I never thought _you_ loved me.”

“So...so what?” Izaya has to fight for air; he can barely hear his own voice for the ringing in his ears, for the tension in his throat. “You find out I’ve been pining for you and suddenly realize you’re in love with me too?” It’s meant to be sarcastic, so obviously so that Izaya doesn’t think his lack of control on his tone will matter; but:

“I don’t know,” Shizuo says, and Izaya can feel the force of the words like a shock to his chest, as if Shizuo has landed one of his bone-crushing blows directly against his heart; as if Shizuo’s fingers are closing around the frantic pace of it even now, as if he’s holding the pattern of Izaya’s life in his palm at this exact moment. “Maybe I do. I never thought about it before.”

“Fuck,” Izaya says, as the only thing he can think to say. It sounds like a sob in his throat. “Shizuo.”

“I think about you all the time,” Shizuo says. “I expect to see you everywhere I go, I can _smell_ when you’re in my city.” His head presses closer, his nose bumps the line of Izaya’s throat; when he draws a deep inhale Izaya’s lashes flutter with the heat that ripples through him at the sound, at the feel of Shizuo breathing him in from so close. “I want to--to _fuck_ you, Izaya, I want to feel you coming under me.” Shizuo’s hips shift, his body settles closer to the sheets; when he thrusts forward again Izaya can feel the impulse travel up him like it’s connected directly to the length of his spine, as if Shizuo’s cock is hardwired to his consciousness and trying to force him right out of coherency. “I want you to want me.”

“Shizu--” Izaya starts; and breaks off into a groan as Shizuo’s cock drives into him to knock coherency clear out of his head. His hand clutches at Shizuo’s hair; his fingers fist against the back of the other’s collar. “Don’t stop.”

“You feel so good,” Shizuo growls. “You smell good and you sound good and I...I want to have you like this, Izaya.” He’s moving to punctuate every statement, his hips bucking forward with ever-increasing force; Izaya’s eyes are open but his vision is hazy, his mouth is open but he can’t find air to fill his lungs. “Just you. Just me. I...fuck,” as his fingers tighten at Izaya’s back, as his hips shove forward to thrust hard into Izaya’s body. “Isn’t that love?”

“Shizuo,” Izaya chokes off. “Again.”

“I love you.” Shizuo’s legs flex, his hips buck; Izaya is shaking, he feels like a wire drawn helplessly, impossibly tight. “Izaya. I love--” and his cock strokes deep inside Izaya’s body, the head of it digging in against sensitive nerves, and Izaya’s head goes back, the sound of Shizuo’s words lost to the wail of heat that breaks from him as he convulses against Shizuo’s support and around Shizuo’s cock. His own length twitches hard, jerking up against Shizuo’s tidy vest and clean shirt; but Izaya isn’t thinking about the mess he’s making of the other’s clothes, and he couldn’t stop himself if he were. He’s helpless to his orgasm, captive to the blinding waves of pleasure rippling through him; and over him Shizuo is groaning so low that Izaya can feel the rumble of sound even if he can’t hear it past his ringing ears. He jolts with heat, his body trembling in waves of sensation as his orgasm washes over and through him; and Shizuo is moving harder, his rhythm giving way as he thrusts roughly into Izaya braced against him. Izaya gasps for air, his clarity breaking apart against the force of Shizuo’s movement, against the thrust of Shizuo’s cock; and then Shizuo’s body jolts against him, Shizuo gasps at his shoulder, and his movement stills as his cock pulses to heat inside Izaya. Izaya can feel Shizuo’s body tremor with aftershocks as the other fills him with his release; and then Shizuo sighs an exhale, and his grip eases to lower Izaya to the bed and to drop himself atop Izaya’s spent form.

Neither of them move for a span of breaths. Izaya, at least, isn’t completely certain he wants to; even with the ache against the inside of his angled-open legs and the pressure inside him slowly easing as the heat of Shizuo’s arousal softens, there’s something comforting about being borne down to the mattress like this, some measure of helplessness that he welcomes just at the moment. While they’re both still and silent this still feels like part of what went before, as if they’re lingering in the act of pleasure instead of the complicated aftermath of it; until Shizuo stirring is almost a disappointment, however inevitable Izaya knew it would be.

“Sorry,” Shizuo says, his voice lower than usual and hazy with the distracting effect of heat on it. He presses his hand to the bed to push himself up and look down over Izaya beneath him; Izaya lets his hands fall from Shizuo’s neck as the other draws away from him. The hand at his back shifts, Shizuo’s fingers flex to hold him steady; and then Shizuo is drawing back and out of him in a slick slide of heat. Izaya presses his lips tight together to keep from whimpering at the loss as much as the drag of friction the pull brings with it, and Shizuo sighs heavily and slides his hand away from Izaya’s back to topple back and sprawl over the mattress alongside the other. Izaya lingers for a moment, his legs aching and his skin pebbling with chill; and then he turns his head to look at Shizuo next to him.

Shizuo doesn’t look angry, isn’t carrying any of the signs of irritation Izaya half-expected to see in his face. His usual frown is absent, as is the crease of concentration that forms at his forehead; the focus of his gaze has gone soft as he gazes up at the ceiling overhead with his expression oddly slack. His cheeks are flushed, his lips are parted; he looks calm, deep-down relaxed as Izaya has never seen him before. Izaya’s skin prickles with something he can’t name, his chest tightens, and when he speaks it’s in a rush, with the words spilling from him almost before he realizes he’s going to say anything. “Are you going to give me my phone back?”

Shizuo’s head turns, his eyes come into focus on Izaya; when he blinks it’s slow, like he’s having trouble parsing the words. “Huh?” His forehead creases for a moment, his lips tighten; but then they clear again, as understanding sweeps over his momentary lack of comprehension. “Oh.” He pushes up onto an elbow and reaches for the pocket of his slacks, where the clothing has rumpled low of his hips where he shoved it in that first desperate need to strip himself of its restraints. “Here.”

Izaya reaches to take the familiar weight of the phone. “Thanks.” Shizuo falls back to the bed, apparently content to go right back to his extended consideration of the ceiling; Izaya turns over onto his stomach instead so he can brace himself up on his elbows as he goes through his phone. Everything seems to be as he left it, contacts and messages and memos all untouched; and the photos, when he opens them to skim through with a quick swipe of his thumb. There’s Namie, and Kururi and Mairu, and the trio of Raira students; and Shizuo, of course, the rows of pictures so familiar to Izaya he can call up the images of them with his eyes shut. He scrolls through them without really seeing them, reaching for the usual comfort they offer by their familiarity; but there’s nothing this time, no purr of satisfaction to be gained by looking at them. The images are too far away, or too out of focus, or too angry; every one of them pales in comparison to the impossible reality of the moment, of the mattress under Izaya’s elbows dipping lopsided around the weight of Shizuo right here, in Izaya’s bedroom, his eyes glazed with satisfaction while his pleasure clings sticky to the inside of Izaya’s thighs. Izaya glances sideways at the other, his gaze flickering down over Shizuo’s rumpled shirt, and sticky-stained vest, and undone pants; and then he angles his phone sideways to aim the camera at the other’s face, where those familiar features are relaxed into some strange emotion Izaya’s never seen there before. Izaya steadies his grip, lifts his thumb towards the _Capture_ button; and Shizuo’s head turns, his focus swinging around as if Izaya has shouted his name.

“What are you doing?” Izaya sees him ask in the view from his phone screen. “Give me that” and the phone is sliding out of Izaya’s grip, the photograph left uncaptured by the abrupt removal as Shizuo rolls over onto his side to face Izaya fully and tosses the phone down towards the end of the bed.

“I was using that,” Izaya protests.

“Stop sneaking pictures of me,” Shizuo tells him. “Haven’t you had enough of that by now?”

Izaya scoffs. “Hardly. This is a golden opportunity, do you really expect me to let it go by undocumented?”

“You don’t need to _document_ it,” Shizuo says. The corner of his mouth is pulling on tension that looks suspiciously like a smile in spite of the rough edge on his voice. “You make it sound like some once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Izaya doesn’t look away from the soft of Shizuo’s gaze. “Is it not?”

Shizuo’s smile gives way; the easy contentment in his expression shifts, tightening to uncertainty at the corners of his eyes and tense against his lower lip. His lashes flicker, his gaze drops; Izaya keeps watching his face as Shizuo’s attention slides down to his shoulder to trace over the curve of it, to slide down the dip of his back.

“I don’t know,” he says. His mouth shifts to pull onto a frown for a moment; and then eases, his expression softening as he lifts a hand to touch his fingers gently against Izaya’s shoulder. “I don’t want it to be.” His touch slides down, his hand moving so carefully Izaya can feel the shift of friction dipping over each separate vertebrae in his back. Shizuo’s gaze follows his hand, as if his eyes are controlling the shift of his fingers. “I’d like to make a habit of it.”

Izaya waits to answer for a moment; partially because he doesn’t know what to say, and partially to see how far down Shizuo’s fingers will travel. They wander down the length of his back, linger over the curve of his spine; and then Shizuo frowns, and Izaya can feel the pressure against his skin shift, and he speaks at once.

“Me too.” Shizuo’s gaze jumps back up to his face; Izaya can only hold the other’s focused stare for a moment before he ducks his head to look down at the pattern of the sheets beneath him. “If you won’t let me take pictures I’ll just have to come find you whenever I want you.”

Shizuo’s touch steadies against Izaya’s back. “Yeah,” he says. His palm slides down, his touch pressing up as his hand crests the line of Izaya’s hip and sweeps up against the curve of the other’s ass. “That sounds okay.”

Izaya huffs a breath without lifting his head. “I never thought the day when come when you’d welcome me into your city.”

Shizuo makes a low sound in his throat; his hand presses close against Izaya’s body. “It depends on what you’re doing there.”

“Or who?” Izaya suggests.

Shizuo growls in a range that’s an answer even before he speaks. “Just call me first.”

Izaya smiles. “Okay,” he says, and tips his head to look at Shizuo next to him. Shizuo’s gaze is lingering at that possessive hand against Izaya’s skin, his eyes dark enough that Izaya has a brief thought to wonder about exactly how inhuman Shizuo’s stamina might be, how quickly he might recover from their first interlude; but then he looks up, and his gaze locks with Izaya’s before Izaya can duck away again. They stare at each other for a moment, Shizuo’s expression calm and Izaya’s more open than he could wish; and then Shizuo takes a breath. “You really love me?”

Izaya’s throat closes up. He can’t find the words to give an answer; the best he can manage is to duck his head into what semblance of a nod he can find while hiding his face behind the shadow of his hair. It’s enough, anyway; Shizuo heaves an exhale, sounding a little shaky and a lot resigned.

“Well then,” he says, and his hand lifts from Izaya’s body to come up and brush against the other’s hair instead and urge the weight of it back and away from Izaya’s face. “That’s okay, then.” His lips curve to form into a lopsided smile; Izaya can’t help but look up at that as Shizuo’s hand comes in to curve against the back of his head. “I like this a lot more than violence, anyway.” Izaya huffs a laugh, caught off-guard into amusement in spite of himself, and Shizuo takes the opportunity to duck in and press their lips together.

Izaya keeps his eyes open for a moment, gazing at the blurred yellow of Shizuo’s hair and the dark of his lashes cast out-of-focus by proximity; and then he shuts his eyes, and he gives up documenting the moment in favor of experiencing it firsthand.


End file.
